In The Dark
by S-Jay494
Summary: Will an untimely death, feuding brothers, and a dark secret that only Dean knows put the Winchester boys in the grave or expose the world John and Mary have worked so hard to keep hidden from their children? [AU Sequel to In The Beginning; In the Wind; and In The Woods]
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: _**After way too long, I've returned to this AU series. Thanks for everyone who kept sending me messages asking for this new installment. I heard you. I appreciate you. I dedicate this one to you.

For those just discovering the series, it makes the most sense when you read the stories in order:

IN THE WIND

IN THE WOODS

IN THE BEGINNING

**_-oOoOoOo-_**

**_300 Polly Decker Road _**

**_Sioux Falls, South Dakota_**

**_6 p.m., December 20, 1998_**

Lucy Reese shook the cold from her bones as she stepped into the colossal mess that was the renovations of the former Simpson house. The home was long abandoned, since some time in the mid-1950s according to local stories and records. Lucy, a newly engaged 20-year-old, recently licensed real estate agent stopped by the house on her way home as the sun set and ominous clouds threatened yet another snow storm.

Her fiancé, Roy Halston, was the lead carpenter in charge of the renovations of the dilapidated Gothic Victorian structure. His father was the head contractor on the project; his mother (Lucy's boss) was the realtor who was going to oversee the sale once all the refurbishing was complete. It was a real family affair with the Halston's. Lucy avoided this property normally, but her job for this one night was simple: Drop by the house and make sure the work crew turned on the taps to a trickle so the pipes wouldn't freeze at night if the heater failed (which it did constantly as it was in dire need of replacing). During the day, the pipes were fine. The workers made sure the heater stayed on; at night, it was a ticking time bomb with the early 20th-century plumbing in need of replacement.

She never liked the house. She felt unwelcome the moment she crossed the threshold in November after it's sale to her soon-to-be in-laws. Even growing up in Sioux Falls, she found the place creepy. She always thought it odd that there it was no local story about a bloody murder occurring there for it certainly looked like it should be haunted. Maybe it was the vine-covered exterior. Maybe it was the worn-gray clapboards that gave it an eerie pallor. Whatever the case, she never liked being there and she especially did not like going there in the evening when the work crews were gone.

As she entered the home, two things struck her instantly. The first was the mingling smells of freshly sawed wood and slowly drying paint. The next was the chill. She reached for the switch on the wall to throw some light on the hallway, but the bulbs flickered briefly then went out entirely. She scoffed and gritted her teeth. Without light, she was not going to the basement to check the fuse box.

"I'd have made a rotten boy scout," she muttered.

She then giggled as her words unearthed a memory about her high school fling and his idea of "_always prepared_." She felt guilty about the warm flush that rushed to her cheeks as she thought of him. Publicly, they had been casual friends who left people wondering whether there was an itch between them or just suggestive teasing. Privately, they ditched their virginity together in the back of her father's pickup truck while parked at an abandoned quarry the summer before their junior year and continued the routine until graduation night when they said their farewells. She never knew until that last night that how much she liked the music of Led Zeppelin. Nearly two years later, she still couldn't hear D'yer Maker, read the band's name, or even see a faded concert T-shirt without her panties growing moist.

She blushed with the memory and sighed longingly over it as she hurried up the stairs to turn on the faucet in the upstairs bathroom.

"Roy's got more money, but he'll never be fun like you, Dean," she said softly.

As she reached the upper floor, Lucy felt the oppressive chill deepen. The air around her grew far colder than the rest of the house. She thought it felt even colder than the air outside as she was suddenly able to see her breath. She was just starting to wonder how that was possible when icy fingers gripped her neck and brutally squeezed.

**_-oOoOoOo-_**

**_1157 Benson Road _**

**_Sioux Falls, South Dakota_**

**_12:30 a.m., December 22, 1998_**

The little house, the one that once housed the now-defunct structure for St. Gabriel's Parish, stood at the edge of town. The landscape was mostly dark as thick, white flakes fluttered down from the steel gray clouds. The chilly night hampered nearly all sound. Everyone in the tiny house should have been sleeping. However, two people were stirring: one in the orange bedroom on the second floor and the other in the slightly larger room just down the hall.

In that larger room, Mary Winchester woke from her sleep bathed in a cold sweat. She sat up and gasped for breath as she shook with fear. Beside her, her husband John groaned quietly and reached a hand toward her. He clumsily patted her arm in a half-conscious effort at comfort.

"Mary?" John mumbled half-asleep still. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, catching her breath and pressing her hand to her fluttering heart.

John rolled onto his side and squinted at her through the darkness. He then sighed in understanding and frustration. This was not a new occurrence for them. It just hadn't happened in a few years.

"Stop worrying," he said calmly through a yawn. "Dean's fine."

"You don't know that," she shook her head as her chest heaved with fright while her heart hammered against her ribs. She ran her hands over her face then sloppily through her hair. "He wasn't there either time I called him last week. He didn't return the messages I left him. He didn't answer today when I called. He was supposed to call us and verify his flight information. He didn't."

John growled, partly over the interruption in his sleep and partly in frustration with his oldest son. The first half Dean's life (and that of his little brother Sam) was stolen from the family. Dean disappeared without a trace at age four with his baby brother and remained missing for a decade. Fate and a few powers John didn't like to think about returned the boys but also left the Winchester family with a one unwritten (and until two years earlier, unbreakable) rule: _Never be unreachable_.

His latest stretch of absence was not so mysterious, but it came with its own unique pain—one of aggravation and disappointment. Until that fall, John felt certain that Dean's days of stretching his father's patience and well-set boundaries for acceptable behavior were over. The boy's desire to act out simply out of the need for rebellion ended when Mary was diagnosed with cancer during Dean's sophomore year in high school. Her rapid decline and near-death shook those urges out of the teen and forced a maturity on him (or awoke a dormant one) that left him as John's reliable second-hand, particularly where family matters and responsibilities were concerned. But both high school and Mary's illness were in the rear view mirror. Dean was away from home and engaged in radio silence at odd intervals. He would pop up on the parental radar eventually and never had what sounded like a good excuse to either John or Mary. None of his reasons were ever unbelievable for the average 19-year-old, but Dean Winchester was hardly average.

"Something's wrong," Mary insisted. "I know it."

"Yeah, so do I," John said. "We trusted him to act like a mature adult. That was a mistake."

"He should have called," she said.

"Yeah, but he didn't," John rumbled tiredly. "Face it, Dean excels at three things: talking back, his ninja jujitsu thing, and avoiding anything that makes him uncomfortable. He's scoring high on that third one this week."

"What could he possibly be avoiding?" she demanded. "He practically lived on the streets for 10 years. Being at home is something he likes."

"Being at home, yes," he agreed. "Coming home is another story—and I don't think Dean's the whole problem here."

John sighed. Two things were bothering her, and only one involved their oldest son. That problem was tagged as a few missed phone calls, but mostly what bothered Mary was that her son was not at home full time. Period. It was Mary's desire that Dean go to college. She just never prepared herself for how it would feel when he did what she asked. He made his mother a promise on what he feared was her deathbed and made good on it.

The other problem was tragic news in the paper that morning. A 20-year-old woman, still not publicly identified, was found dead outside a house in town. The initial story in the paper held that she died after slipping on the ice and hitting her head then laying exposed to the elements over a frigid night. Out of caution (and probably habit), Mary made a few discreet inquiries. She was told basically what the paper reported: The death was unfortunate did not appear suspicious. Still, hearing about the death of any person in the age range of her sons always put Mary on edge.

"That girl dying, whoever she was, was a terrible thing for her family, and I feel for them but it was an accident," he said. "Not every bad thing that happens to someone with a family is suspicious, and it certainly doesn't make it evil. Don't put yourself through this, Mary. The boys are fine. Not everything bad that happens is a sign that something worse is coming for us."

He placed a consoling hand on her shoulder only to feel her go rigid at his touch. He read the reaction for what it was, reluctance to agree with him simply because she had whipped herself into a hurricane of worry. Her storm would only subside once she heard Dean's voice telling her when he would be home.

"It's not normal that he didn't call," she persisted.

"What constitutes normal for Dean has gone through a bit of a shift since the fall," John noted. "His radio silence isn't appreciated, but this week its predictable when you remember that he's afraid of flying. Face it, our self-proclaimed badass son is what is more commonly called a coward when it comes to airplanes. Just talking about flying makes him nervous. Not confirming his flight until the absolute last second is his version of curling up into a ball and sucking his thumb."

She huffed and reiterated her bone-deep feeling there was something more going on than her age-old worries bubbling to the surface simply because her son skipped a check-in call. She also doubted something as small as a plane flight would cripple his ability to communicate. She scowled at the thought of the tired smirk she knew was on his face despite not being able to see his expression through the dark. One of the things she first loved about John Winchester was his innocence, his lack of knowledge about the dark and clawing things that lived in the shadows. Even after learning that things that go bump in the night were just as likely to be toothy as be nothing, he refused to see that there were things to fear, things he did not understand. Both her hunter's instincts and her mother's intuition were telling her there was a reason to worry.

"We haven't spoken to Dean in a month," Mary said with her voice growing brittle.

"We've heard from him," John offered.

"All we get are the messages he leaves with whoever answers the phone at the shop for you or whoever answered the phone for me at the library," she worried. "There's more going on than a fear of flying. I can feel in my bones."

John groaned softly. The only feeling in his bones was an ache from spending all day elbow-deep in a Chevy half-ton pickup that needed a new transmission. He didn't want to tackle a job that big just as the holiday arrived, but money was tight now that he had just expanded in their automotive repair garage. Of course, money was always tight for the Winchesters. John knew they were lucky Dean was managing to hold on to his financial aid. In fact, John considered it an outright miracle Dean got the sweet deal that first got him accepted at Notre Dame and next landed him an exceptionally generous scholarship, grant, and loan package.

He remained skeptical on Dean's dedication to repaying the loans. Of course, he also never thought Dean would stick with college through the first weeks of his freshman year much less see his sophomore year. That accomplishment left John open to the possibility Dean could still surprise him. After all, he got into a top university (and was pretty frank with his father that he only applied because his history teacher offered to let him out of a week of detention if he did it). Dean was street smart and mechanically gifted, but Sam was the scholar in the family.

"You're worrying for nothing," he attempted to soothe his wife. "If you have to worry about something, worry about the boys ending this stupid silent feud they've had going. I've got no patience for Dean's sulking while claiming it doesn't bother him, and Sammy's pissy attitude about all things involving his brother got old back in June. He hasn't asked me once when Dean's expected home. Did he ask you?"

She shook her head. For two boys who previously could not be separated without both showing signs of withdrawal, the distance between them was both astounding and heartbreaking. Both parents saw it for what it was: a bad take on separation anxiety. The trouble was, the boys needed to go through it. Each reacted so differently it morphed into a battle of wills between them. Both parents knew that Sam missed his brother deeply and resented that Dean only spent a week of his summer vacation at home due to needing to retake a class (and work to pay for it) back at the Indiana university. In the midst of a minor squabble that brief visit home, Dean got an earful from Sam about how much better life was now that his overbearing, suffocating, troublesome older brother was no longer a part of his daily life. Dean took the words more closely to the heart than Sam intended them. As a result, he departed for school a day earlier than planned and never said goodbye to his little brother. Sam took that as a slap in the face and declaration that Dean had outgrown his interest in being the big brother. In retaliation, Sam made sure he was not around any time Dean called home after that. The upcoming holiday would be the first time the brothers would see or speak to each other in seven months. For two boys who had never spent more than 24 hours apart in their lives previously, it was as if a lifetime had passed.

"If this bullshit tantrum between them doesn't end quickly, I'm locking them in the basement so they can beat whatever their problems are out of each other," John vowed.

Mary shook her head signaling her lack of agreement with the plan as much as her termination of the discussion. Then she reached for the phone. John quickly reached across the bed and pulled her back, hanging up the phone she was about to dial.

"Just go back to sleep."

"It's after midnight," she objected. "He should be at his apartment. Don't tell me I shouldn't wake him. Dean's a night owl. He won't mind."

"He may not be alone," John pointed out and received a stony glare. "He lives above a priest's garage, but Dean didn't become a monk. Now, you know that if there was anything wrong, Father Reardon would call us. Dean's no angel, but he's got a Jesuit priest for a landlord so I'm fairly confident he's got the right supervision. Now, let's get some sleep. Dean will call tomorrow, at the last possible minute, letting us know he's at the airport and what time he'll be landing. Once he's home, you can lecture him until your heart is content. He'll like that. It'll give him a reason to grumble while at the same time showing him how much you missed him. Now, stop expecting the worst and trust him."

"Trust him?" she repeated and leveled a hard gaze back at him. "You're the one preparing the responsible adult speech for him."

"That's different," John yawned, tugging her and her reluctant pout back into the bed. "When I speak to him, it won't be a speech. I'll say what I have to say and that will be that. You still call him your baby, but Dean's not a kid anymore. He's going to be 20 next month. Now, tell me the truth. What really woke you up? Was it that dream?"

She nodded as he draped his arm protectively over her shoulders. It was the same dream she always had, the same nightmare, whenever she worried about her children. It wasn't so much a dream as it was replaying her real-life nightmare: the night her sons were taken. She would find herself running down the hallway of their house in Lawrence, Kansas, to find beds empty and no sign of her little boys anywhere. She would then race down a hallway that turned eerily dark and insanely long and each room she checked along the way was cold and empty—precisely how she felt each time awoke in a cold sweat.

"Sam is in his room sleeping, probably cuddling his Latin textbook," John predicted. "Dean is in South Bend, possibly out with friends or in bed with whatever girl caught his eye this month."

Mary offered him her flat stare once more. John shrugged. He stood by his offering; no one who knew him would call Dean Winchester a saint. When he was his oldest son's age, John was at Paris Island getting ready to head off to war. Between the two choices, he was glad Dean was doing whatever was taking up his time.

Mary did not like hearing logic when her nerves were rattled and her bones tingling with worry. She detested having her children away from home for even a night—having one living 10 hours away by car every day was hard for her. What was equally as hard was knowing that Dean did cope just fine without his mother there to look after him. John and Mary's first-born had been on his own since he was virtually a toddler. Dean was self-reliant and extremely capable in most situations. School, studying, and routine were the things that he generally avoided, but he could manage them when it was required. It was Mary who found it hard to adjust to life without both of her sons under her roof; John feared how she would react in a few more years when Sam went off to school as well.

As if reading his mind, she abruptly got out of bed and snatched her robe from the closet.

"I'm going to check on Sam," she said. Before he could object, she started down the hallway.

**_-oOoOoOo-_**

Fifteen-year-old Sam Winchester crouched low as he turned the corner away from the stairs on the ground floor of his family's home. He found himself on the ground floor after an uncharacteristic spurt of adventure seized him. Not 10 minutes after he turned out the light in his room, he spied the dual headlight beams of a car outside his window. They were not close to the house. The driveway to the former-church turned into a home was long and curved halfway down its lazy stretch. Cars sometimes pulled into the mouth of the driveway, roughly a football field away from the actual structure, when the drivers realized they were on the wrong road and needed to turn around, but in general there was very little traffic this far down on the road. Most cars heading in this direction stopped half a mile east at the adjacent salvage yard, but no one even did that after dark in the sleepy city of Sioux Falls. That was why Sam couldn't ignore the lights. He peeked out his window and would have paid the brief flash of lights no mind as they began to review and turn around, except he saw a shadow cut into the beams as the car returned to the road. From his darkened bedroom window, the high school sophomore peered closely into the inky, snowy night. Through his limited visibility, he saw something approaching the house.

As his heart hammered and his nerves tingled, he took stock of the situation. There were no weapons in the house (nor did he know how to handle any), but there were locks on all the doors and windows. His ears perked as he poked his head into the hallway. He thought he heard his mother gasp in her sleep down the hallway, and that made him scowl. She was restless lately, and Sam knew whose fault that was. His lip curled in anger at the thought of his selfish and inconsiderate brother. Sam waited another minute but saw no lights from his parents' room so he figured they were asleep. As he made that assessment, he heard a metallic click of a door latch on the lower floor.

His instincts told him he was not imagining things. He knew the smart thing to do would be to wake his father who was after all a Marine… Well, technically he was a former Marine—the guy just didn't act like he accepted the "former" part of it when he was in full-on, protective Dad mode. But Sam didn't feel like running to his father. Sam was no longer a child; he didn't need a protector—he'd proven that over the last year of surviving high school without his brother acting like a self-righteous, overbearing, brutish bodyguard. He hadn't needed Dean, not even once, and that taught Sam what he now had decided that he always suspected: He didn't need Dean, either.

With his newfound confidence, he felt a thrill deep in his gut that sent him slinking down the stairs to investigate. Although his heart raced, he reminded himself that he was smart and capable. He might not be as schooled as his older brother in physical fighting, but Sam was far from helpless and never need to punch his way out of situations like Dean did since Sam could think his way through them with greater (and less painful) success. After all, Sam was the reigning South Dakota High School Chess Champion (and ranked 14th nationally for players age 15-20, which was none too shabby considering he only learned to play his freshman year).

He was also nearly six feet tall after a painful and nearly embarrassing growth spurt over the summer. He might not play a contact sport, but he was not a 98-pound weakling either. Just because happened to be the newly elected Vice President of the Latin Club didn't mean he had no strength. Attending high school with those kinds of academic credentials attracted bullies. Being without his big brother for the first time to slam anyone into a locker who tried to pick on him for it made Sam learned to stand up for himself. While he didn't have Dean's menacing stare or his older brother's willingness to throw down with anyone who he saw as a potential threat, Sam held his own using logic and as much understanding as he could muster. He was loath to admit that some of Dean's lessons also proved helpful, like how to take a punch and how to protect himself if attacked. What Sam didn't do was throw the first punch or any retaliating punches. He was studying Gandhi and believed in passive resistance; it just didn't hurt that he knew how to protect vital organs and not leave himself overly vulnerable to attacks.

He was proud of himself of how he faced down those who tried to intimidate him and even prouder that it offered the final proof that he was much more capable than his sibling. Dean was apt to get himself in over his head with his thoughtless and aggressive approach to tense and dangerous situations, mouthing off and stoking a smoldering situation into a conflagration with rude quips and antagonizing sarcasm. Sam didn't suffer from those flaws. The more he thought about it during his brother's absence, the more Sam wondered if his brother's impulsive streak was evidence of more than just immaturity and a hot head. Sam suspected lately (when he could swallow his raging feelings of anger toward Dean long enough to let his worry bleed through) that his brother had a death wish.

However, Sam assured himself was not being reckless by investigating suspicious sounds in the house. First, he was home. There was nowhere on the planet where he could be safer. Next, he was just being diligent. He reasoned (commending himself for doing that when his brother wouldn't) that the shadow was probably nothing, thus no reason to wake his parents (who worked hard and deserved a good night's sleep). And, since these noises that made the hairs on his neck prickle were nothing, it was fine that he didn't arm himself by grabbing one of the baseball bats from Dean's room. Sam reasoned he was being considerate and mature doing this trip the silent and stealthy way. A little look around and he'd be back in bed in two minutes. Sam could handle this recon mission on his own. This was just a little stroll down the stairs.

Except when he reached the bottom, a chill slithered down his spine as he realized he wasn't the only person on the ground floor.

Without thinking why he was doing it, Sam kept low and crossed the living room, making certain to avoid the two creaking boards near the fireplace. The intruder, he realized, was in the small room off the kitchen that held the washer and dryer. He thought it odd that a burglar would come to their house (it was small and obviously not opulent) and go to the laundry room. As he approached, Sam could hear the teeth of a zipper and the rustling sound of something being removed from a bag.

Feeling his element of surprise might not last much longer, he launched himself at the man, taking a swing at his head. The initial, grunt of surprise he heard excited Sam as his fist collided with the intruder's ear. The man stumbled, but the blow did not knock him out. The blow wounded only. A hiss of pain and anger sounded as Sam pulled back for another shot but found his wrists quickly tangled and twisted. The man's grip was brutal as Sam got spun around and held in a sort of headlock/choke hold that instantly dropped him to his knees. He struggled until a familiar and slightly pissed off but winded voice scoffed in his ear.

"You wanna be careful jumping someone if you aren't sure what they might do in retaliation, Sammy," the raspy tones of his older brother's voice warned as he released the hold and pushed the younger Winchester away gently.

Rage, shock, and embarrassment coursed through his veins and made him pop quickly to his feet. Sam spun around and shoved Dean hard into the washing machine. The resounding thud loosed deep wince of pain followed by a loud curse from Dean elicited a quick bark of surprise from the upper floor as their parents were roused.

"Whoa, hey," Dean chided as he gasped and clawed the appliances to get back on his feet. "Easy there, tiger. Are you being a dick because you want me to kick your ass?"

Sam reached for the wall switch and snapped on the light to see his brother standing before him wearing a pained but mocking smirk.

"Dean?" Sam's chest heaved as his eyes adjusted in the light.

"No, I'm a stranger breaking in to do laundry," Dean grumbled and stiff-armed his brother backward. "You're lucky I don't beat the crap out of you just on principle. Why the hell did you hit me?"

"What the hell is right," Sam snarled. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too," he mumbled.

Dean massaged this ribs briefly then rubbed the aching spot behind his hear where his younger brother tagged him. He clenched his jaw as the physical pain he was feeling flared alongside another sharper and deeper pain caused by the fury he saw in his little brother's eyes.

"That bitchy order you laid on me in May is still your deal: We're brothers in name only now?" Dean scoffed. "Awesome. So our 'divorce' didn't give me visiting rights with Dad and Mom?"

"Oh, do you even want to see them?" Sam huffed. "You haven't talked to either of them in months."

His eyes narrowed in anger that let his brother know his edict regarding their status as no longer close friends and brothers in the eyes of the law (and biology) only had not altered as his frosty attitude toward his older brother had not warmed. Dean shook his head but regretted the motion as his stomach flipped and the world spun. He forced a deep (if painful) breath and leaned on the dryer to keep his balance. He kept his arm tightly to his side and was thankful the hoodie he wore was black. It would hide whatever blood was leaking from his self-sewn stitches in his side after Sam's blitz attack likely pulled a few of them loose. Pressing his elbow more tightly to his side sent a burning sensation along his ribs, but the sensation cleared his mind and helped him focus. As he blinked his vision clear and his eyes fully adjusted to the light, he looked at Sam and gaped. His "little" brother now stood nearly eye to eye with him.

"Holy crap," Dean said. "What are they feeding you? Miracle-Gro? You're like a foot taller."

"Well, I haven't seen you since the spring, genius," Sam taunted. "Do the math if you can manage it."

"Depends," Dean quipped. "Do I get to use my fingers for this test?"

He sneered then offered a single digit as a suggestion on what Sam could do with both his attitude and slight. Before the discussion could escalate (or devolve) further, feet suddenly sounded on the stairs. Within seconds, lights in the living room and kitchen flipped on as the worried tones of their mother's voice carried toward them.

"Sam?" Mary asked, hurrying toward the back of the house. "What's wrong? What's…? Dean!"

"Hi," Dean waved with a small movement and tried to ignore the radiating from pain his side. "Surprise. I'm home. Sammy's being pissy."

Mary crossed the room, ignoring the comments and the harsh looks exchanged by her sons. She reached for Dean and pulled him into a tight hug that left him suppressing a deeper wince.

"Sweetheart," she gaped. "This is why you didn't answer when I called. You weren't at your apartment; you were already at the airport. When did you get here? I thought your flight was tomorrow. Did you leave school early? Why didn't you call us to tell us when you'd be arriving?"

Dean vaguely explained that he arranged to take his last of his exam earlier than scheduled. With the hot chicks across the street already gone home for the holiday, Dean saw no reason to stick around Indiana. Each was a smooth lie laced with bits of truth. Thankfully, the late hour and joy of seeing her wayward son left Mary oblivious to the untruths he paraded for her.

"Changing your flight must have been expensive," she observed, pointedly ignoring the comment about neighborhood eye candy. "How did you afford that?"

"By cashing in the open ticket you booked for me and not taking a flight to get here," Dean offered as he stepped back from her embrace. "I took a bus instead. It's an 11 hour ride, but it's cheaper."

"And it's not nearly as terrifying," Sam said and received a hard glare from his brother.

"Did she forget to change your diaper and that's why you're awake so late, little boy?" Dean asked then turned his back on Sam. "I called Chuck Pratt when I got to the bus station. So, if your super spy net in town tells you I got brought home in a cop car, that's only technically true. Chuck took his work cruiser because it's got better tires on it than his piece of crap truck."

Mary nodded, unconcerned that Dean's high school cohort (conveniently now a deputy sheriff and the son of the former county sheriff) had violated the law and used county property to act as a taxi driver. As she pushed those concerns out of her mind, heavier footsteps were heard descending the stairs. John, bleary and weary, stepping into the light and looked at the trio of his family with a confused expression.

"You forget how to use a phone?" he asked his oldest.

"Forget, no," Dean shook his head. "Have the money to actually dial home? Uh, that would be another no. I kind of had to use some of the money for the plane ticket for other stuff, you know like food and electricity. I figured out a whole scheme to use all those credit card offers the companies send everyone. I could score a dozen cards in someone else's name, and no one would know it. I could keep them tied in knots for years before they could track me down and to make me pay."

"Why are you telling me this?" John asked.

"I'd like you to know that I figured out how, but I haven't resorted to doing it to cover my living expenses," Dean smiled. "It's the second part that I thought would impress you."

John eyed his son flatly in a look of displeasure that still managed to draw a broad grin on Dean's face.

"Your resistance to becoming a felon always makes me proud," John replied only widening his son's toothy expression that erased much of the frustration and fatigue in his features.

Mary beamed at her oldest as though he had just won a great prize. Sam glowered silently to the side. John sighed, knowing his wife's smile was less to do with the proclaimed virtue of avoiding credit card fraud and more to do with the fact Dean was home and offering his typical cheeky responses. John, too, was glad to see him, but he seeds of worry were germinating in his mind.

The boy looked tired, like he had not slept often in weeks. Dark circles ringed his eyes and there was a dusky hue along his hairline that looked suspiciously like a healing bruise. He also looked pale—even for his normally fair complexion—and thin, like someone recovering from a recent but powerful illness. John didn't expect that his son was living on a healthy diet. He was a college student eking by with whatever he could afford from the job he held while taking a full load of classes. Still, the worn and thin look was more than just a bare college cupboard visage. There was a hardness and a weariness John sensed that was at odds with the shit-eating grin the kid wore.

John wondered if the pressure of school was proving too much for Dean. He was never much of a student unless it involved the study of coeds or Krav Maga, a fairly exotic and highly dangerous martial art he began learning during his childhood. The intense, and, at times brutal workouts to practice the martial art usually kept his body toned and agile, but it never left him looking wispy or withered. It kept him fit, but it also cleared his mind and settled the many troubling thoughts that rattled around in his angst-prone brain. What John saw in front of him looked more like a man struggling to get over a lingering illness. Unwittingly, his mind harkened back to the days when Mary was battling with cancer. It took her months to get her strength back and regain the weight she lost. Dean sported a similar wan pallor that spoke of grueling stress on a body. It was further accentuated when viewed beside the thriving and still growing physique of his younger brother.

They were very different young men. Sam was growing into a very tall and lanky young man with long arms, floppy feet, and hair that was in serious need of a weed-whacker in John's opinion. He was a health nut who liked salad and fruit. Junk food was rarely his preference. He was developing an interest in yoga (of all things) and his preferred hobby was reading. Dean liked to live on sugar, caffeine, and grease usually. He'd rather punch something than twist himself in a pretzel and meditate on it. Reading only held his interest when it was about classic cars and engines (regardless of his claims to appreciate the journalism in the stack of skin magazines in his closet). Previously, John would have also said Dean was the stronger of the two boys, but looking at them in the back room, he was surprised Sam didn't hurt Dean with his surprise attack as Dean looked noticeably frail.

There were other differences between the two as well, particularly in temperament. It was surprising that Sam tried to blitz attack in the dark. That was more of a Dean maneuver. The two boys approached most every situation in nearly polar opposite ways, yet there were threads that did bind them, making them two halves of the same whole. Where Dean would worry, Sam would merely ponder and question. The younger Winchester liked to research things to understand them. He had confidence in his knowledge and felt comfortable going his own way. He could do that because he knew, certainly subconsciously, that someone always had his back. He may have spent his first 10 years living as an orphan but his brother acted as a parent. He took care of his younger brother, looked after him and protected him, allowing the boy to be just that, a boy. It gave Sam a confidence that some mistook as arrogance, but that was merely an assurance that someone, somewhere, would be proud of him no matter what he did and (if anything went wrong) that someone would swoop in and make a bad situation better.

Dean did not have that sense of security. He had a hard time learning to trust his parents again after being returned to them following their kidnapping. During the decade without his parents, Dean learned to function on instinct. It taught him many valuable lessons (self-reliance and responsibility for his brother). He wadded all that he knew into one sense of purpose: Look after Sammy. His baby brother was his life, or had been until they were reunited with their parents. Since having that responsibility stripped from his shoulders, Dean had floundered a bit. He continued to believe his only worth was in taking care of his brother and when relieved of that duty, felt he had none whatsoever. The fracture in the boys' relationship the previous spring hurt him as badly as any physical injury ever had. Looking at his oldest that evening, John began to doubt his earlier assurances to his wife. He found he could not ignore how haggard his oldest looked.

"I'm so glad you're home, sweetheart," Mary said, cupping his cheek lovingly. "You look so tired, and your cheeks are hollow. Have you eaten today? Are you feeling okay? Should I get you in to see the doctor? Are your glands swollen? Have you been running a fever? When did you sleep last?"

She placed her hands along his neck and checked for bumps. There was a barely perceptible pinch to Dean's eyes and a clench to his jaw as he pulled her hand back. He then sighed in a predictably exasperated fashion.

"I couldn't sleep on the bus," he replied— prying himself gingerly from her grasp. "I didn't want to get molested by a pervy passenger. And the driver was a woman with man hands; she was checking me out in the rearview mirror. I had peanut M&M's for lunch and dinner. I even ate the green ones so it was healthy—practically a salad. I'm not sick, Mom. It was just a long ride."

"You always say you're not sick even when you are," Mary noted. "You sound a congested and hoarse."

"Maybe I've taken up smoking," Dean joked then rolled his eyes at her stern expression. "Mom, it's a cold. Everyone in the friggin' country has one in December. It's nothing."

"For most people, a cold is nothing," Mary said. "You are not most people."

"Yeah, you're the freak missing an organ," Sam smirked. Dean glared at him. Sam, who previously would have cowered under the hard look, shrugged smugly. "Or are you still claiming that losing your spleen made you 'special' not a freak?"

"I can still kick your ass," Dean grumbled.

"Didn't seem like it five minutes ago," Sam taunted confidently.

John stepped into the space between his sons, fearing a scuffle was on the cusp of erupting. He also wanted to cut off any discussion regarding a taboo subject in the house.

"I'll be the one kicking asses if this bickering continues and there is anymore talk about removed organs without prior authorization from your mother or me," he groaned, citing one of the more bizarre family rules he created since being reunited with his sons. "It's late. Everyone needs to go to bed. Mary, you can diagnose Dean with the plague in the morning as you make him a four course breakfast. Sam, you're off guard duty…"

"If we had a dog…," Sam began hopefully.

"Why get a dog when they've got you?" Dean grinned nastily at his brother as he ruffled his hand through Sam's long locks. "If you curl this mop, you could be their poodle, Sammy."

"It's Sam," his brother snarled.

"And it's late," John said forcefully. "Dean, you can explain to me why you didn't bother to tell us your travel plans after I've had my second cup of coffee. For now, everyone: upstairs or I promise I won't be my normal cheerful self after the sun is up."

The boys exchanged looks with their mother, each acknowledging that neither of them was going to argue when John used his Marine voice. Predictably, Dean caved to the order first (saluting in a mocking fashion) as he passed between his parents and headed upstairs. Sam glared at his brother's back then slouched in defeat and tromped after him, scuffing his long feet unnecessarily and grating on his father's nerves. This was one of Sam's latest new habits. It was as if he wasn't comfortable with his sudden growth spurt so slouching and dragging his feet was an effort to shrink himself.

John shook his head and resigned himself to leaving his family's quirks for another day to figure out. He followed his wife upstairs, but first checked that the door was locked. Dean, he noted, had at least fastened the lock after he entered. That he got into the house so silently was something that nagged a bit at John, as did the suspicion about how Dean got into the house at all without a key; his set to the house was left behind with his car keys when he went to school. John was also certain he had locked the door when he turned in for the night but was starting to doubt himself. As he pondered the possibility that he forgot, he peered out the window and noted snow was falling yet again. There would be another few inches on the ground by sunrise. Shaking his head at the weather, he yawned then trudged up the stairs. As he reached the upper floor, he spotted the light seeping from Dean's room. He nudged open the door to find his son standing at his window, peering into the darkness with a pensive expression.

"I said its time to turn in," John remarked entering the room. "That means crawling in the bed and going to sleep, or is there another definition for it at Notre Dame?"

Dean looked at him sullenly then shook his head. There was a dark and uncertain shadow to his son's eyes. John approached him and put his hand on his shoulder out a sudden surge of concern. Dean swallowed hard and simply shook his head.

"Hey, look at me," John remarked and moved his hand to the back of Dean's neck, coaxing his son to look at him directly. "What's wrong? Is there something going on I should know about?"

"No, just… the world's a pretty fucked up place," Dean said in a low voice. "I get why some people go off on their own to live in the middle of nowhere away from everything."

"Dean?" John questioned.

"It's nothing; I'm just tired," he replied as he sat on his bed then reached to turn out his light.

John stepped into the hallway with a knot cinching tight in his chest as a sobering realization struck him: Mary wasn't imagining things; something was wrong.

**_-OoOoOoOo-_**

A/N: More to come…


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: ** Thanks to anyone who drops a review. Your kindly prodding over the last few years (eek!) got me back into the FF pool again. So, I thank you. I appreciate you. I dedicate this story to you. I am sorry I can't keep up timely with all the PM's I'm getting so here are some general answers to the most frequent questions I'm getting:

Yes, this story has a slower start than the others. We've jumped ahead 4 years since IN THE BEGINNING so it needs some real estate devoted to exposition covering that time.

For those who visited my FB author page and scrolled deep: Yes those are photos of me with SPN co-star Jim Beaver (Bobby Singer) and SPN Producer Jim Michaels. We talked politics, the show, and they got autographed copies of my novels (Jim Beaver also autographed his book for me) over breakfast a while back. I also met up with Jim Beaver at a play he wrote and performed in Hollywood; I attended opening night so that's where the red carpet photos with him were taken.

* * *

**-oOoOoOo-**

Morning rudely came exceptionally early for John. The dark hours after Dean's return dragging endlessly for the family patriarch. Dean's bizarre comments before going to sleep gnawed on John and drove away all hope of sleep. When his alarm sounded, he was out of bed and ready for the day with a heavy feeling of dread in his chest. He usually left the spying in the house to his wife, but he made it a point to peek into Dean's room as he passed by that morning. He was relieved to see his son sleeping. It caught his attention that he still wore his clothing from the night before: a dark hoodie and some faded jeans. He had kicked off his boots and socks to reveal dark, shiny colors on his toenails. John stared at them but shelved his questions for another time as he also noted Dean was sleeping on his side with his back to the door. More often than not, Dean was a belly sleeper, dozing off on his stomach while clutching his pillow with desperation like it was a life preserver.

_Maybe the girl of the month likes spooning_, John thought silently but the humor felt stale and fell flat in his mind.

With worries now churning in his mind, he stumped down the stairs and to the kitchen where coffee beckoned along with the beginnings of an immense breakfast that looked more like Christmas had arrived already rather than loomed several days in the future.

"I was joking about the feast for the prodigal son," John said as he spied the mountain of pancakes teetering on the counter.

"You didn't get much sleep, and it's Sam's last day at school for 10 days," she explained.

"And Dean is home," John added and received a guilty grin from his wife whose late night worries appeared to have vanished just as his own had bloomed.

"You all need to eat," she said. "Whatever Dean's doing with his money, food obviously isn't a high enough priority. He looks too exhausted for this thing to just be a cold. And even if it just a cold, he doesn't fight those off as well as Sam because…"

"Because of the organ that shall remain unmentioned," John rumbled. "_Ix-nay_ on the _een-splay_, Mary. The last thing any of us need is to revive that lament—unless you want Dean writing a Christmas carol about his missing organ."

Mary nodded her agreement to curtail the subject but smirked as she turned back to the stove as the bacon began sizzling. There was a lightness in her face that did not fit with her previous mention of worry over whether Dean's stuffy nose was fatal. Her immediate and most desperate concern was put to rest as soon as both of her boys were under her roof once more. John shook his head as he sipped his coffee and tried to convince himself that his own worries should take a cue from that and settle down. He tried telling himself his pangs of fear were probably fueled more by lack of sleep than facts. After all, his wife's senses about anything that posed any danger to their children were always much more acute than his own. She would see danger in a butterfly landing on Sam's nose. Her renewed happy mood gave John a flicker of hope that he was misconstruing his own observations.

As the inviting smells of a hearty breakfast filled the house, noises from the upstairs increased. Sam eventually appeared, bright eyed and eager for his final day of school for the year. It was an unexpected eagerness. He generally enjoyed school and treated breaks from it like a punishment.

"You've only got half a day today, honey," Mary said to him. "If you don't want to ride the bus, you can come to the library and I can bring you home rather than take a lunch."

"You don't need to do that," John offered. "Dean can pick him up. First thing he's going to do is go visit the love of his life."

John made the remark without any sarcasm or judgment. His son had rebuilt a classic muscle car over the course to two years and treated the machine like a pampered mistress. It wasn't quite the masterpiece that John's own 1967 Chevy Impala was, but he agreed that the shiny, black, 1969 Camaro Z28 was a thing of beauty. He was proud his eldest son revived her from her skeletal state and loved her the way she deserved.

"That car hasn't been driven since June," Mary reminded him. "It's been locked up at Bobby's for months. It'll be dead where it sits."

"Bobby has the battery on a tender so it'll fire without hesitation," he replied. "He also runs it once a week to keep the seals and belts working. Dean made him promise."

"It doesn't have snow tires," Mary added.

"He knows how to drive," John said with emphasis as he opened the paper—skipping the front page and going to an interior one to observe the ad his partner was running for their upcoming January service specials. He nodded, glad this time they spelled all the words in the advertisement correctly. "Dean poured hundreds of hours into that car, Mary. He's not going to do anything reckless that will damage it."

"Yeah, he cares about a stupid car more than he does people," Sam muttered with a scoff then stuffed a piece of toast in his mouth as he caught his father's heavy stare.

A chill settled over the warm kitchen as Sam finished his breakfast in silence. It was into that tense atmosphere that Dean appeared, still wan in appearance as he rubbed his sunken eyes. Without asking his preference, Mary placed a heaping plate of pancakes in front of him. He merely nodded his thanks then filled a mug full of black coffee and let the scalding black water slide down his raw throat. He opened his eyes enough to see his father staring at him.

"Breakfast of champions," Dean croaked and offered a weak grin.

"Know what works best to help you wake up in the morning?" his father remarked. "Getting enough sleep at night regularly."

"Good tip," Dean nodded and offered a thumbs up before he began drowning his pancakes in syrup. "I'll remember that."

"Like you remembered to call with your travel plans?" John asked.

"Uh, I'll try to remember it better than…," Dean replied, but his words trailed off.

His eyes fixed on the headline in the paper. Without asking, he snatched the pages from his father's grip and dropped them over his plate as he gaped at the lead story: FROZEN BODY IDENTIFIED AS LOCAL REALTOR.

"What do you think you're doing?" John asked gruffly, but Dean did not appear to hear.

He stared at the words in front of him, several popping off the page and stinging his eyes: _Lucy Reese; deceased; acute hypothermia; Simpson house_. Dean's breath snatched in his chest as his throat went dry. His appetite vanished and a chill slithered under his skin.

_This evil crap really is everywhere,_ he thought as the hopes he had that returning home would restore some of his will disappeared just like Lucy's last breath.

"Son, I was reading that," John continued sternly until Dean looked up with eyes so profoundly lost that the elder Winchester tugged the paper back and scanned for what could have caused the expression. "Lucy Reese?"

"What about Lucy?" Mary asked, peering at the page then gasping.

"She's Tommy's sister," Sam scoffed, thinking of his best friend's older sibling, the one who used to only pay chauffeur to her little brother when he would be going to Sam's house (and she did so only to try and finagle a chance to see Dean and thrust out her chest at him in her low-cut blouses). "Remember, she was the girl Dean was '_just friends with'_ in high school. She's engaged now."

"No," Dean said quietly pushing away from the table as he turned to leave the room. "She's not anything anymore."

Sam blinked and looked at the stunned looks on his parents' faces before leaning across the table to see the source of their despair. As he read the first paragraph of the article finally publicly naming the victim of the sudden death in town days earlier, a cold sinking feeling began in his stomach. He turned to speak to his mother only to see her slipping out of the kitchen—no doubt following his brother who had abandoned his breakfast. Sam swallowed and looked to his father instead.

"But Lucy was Dean's age," Sam gaped. "She can't be dead. How does someone her age just collapse and die on her way home? That makes no sense."

"Eat your breakfast, Sam," John ordered as he pushed away from the table.

"I already ate," he gestured to his empty plate.

"Then eat Dean's," John said with an eerie, controlled calm as he began to follow his wife. "Your brother's lost his appetite."

**-oOoOoOo-**

Neither Mary nor John got much of a response from Dean after they tried to speak to him. He had returned to his room, leaving the door strategically ajar as he figured at least one of them would stick their head in out of obligation. He brushed off their concern with a practiced poker face (the one that won him most of his electricity and grocery money each month). He knew the trick with parents on the lookout for trouble was to let them see just a bit but hide the tonnage that really existed. So he copped to being sucker punched by the news about his high school classmate's death. He admitted it nixed his hunger for the moment and asked to be left alone for a little while.

He offered each piece with rolling eyes, snappish tone, and salted in a few coarse words for good measure. They'd never have believed him otherwise. After each departed, he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the thump of his heart against his sore ribs. The part of him that remembered when sorrow for the unfortunate and untimely death of someone ached as well. He'd seen a lot of death in the last year and a half. All of it was messy. None of it was ever going to leave him. He heard the screams of possessed people shrieking through their exorcisms; he smelled the acrid smoke of burned corpses of freshly slayed monsters; he would wake up bathed in sweat and initially think it was the spray of blood from a severed head.

He thought it strange that his newest hobby left him wondering what was actually harder for him to survive: academic classroom lectures or hunting the big, bad fuglies that tore humans to shreds for food and kicks.

Lucy's death was reportedly an accident: a slip leading to a head injury that resulted in death by hemorrhaging and severe hypothermia. The paper quoted the Sheriff as stating there was no foul play and that the investigation was closed. Dean could point to no detail in the article to make him doubt that finding, but that didn't mean he believed it.

In his recollection, Lucy Reese was many things: a bit of an airhead; entirely too hung up on wearing the right labels and getting her hair and eye makeup just right; and a horny sex pot. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad and a gymnast during her high school days, which was where Dean's doubts began.

She'd been dropped during lifts and pyramids and knew how to hit the ground without getting badly hurt. She was nimble and flexible and graceful generally. No stubbed toe, slip on the ice, or missed stair tread was going to leave her tumbling to the ground so ungainly that she fractured her skull. The Vegas money said if it wasn't an accident, then the next most likely cause was human—a pissed off fiancé or some nutjob who crossed her path—but the cops weren't thinking there was anything strange. It was obvious to Dean that strange was the only option on the table. Healthy, coordinated girls with a big ring on their fingers didn't accidentally die in the snow two miles from home for no reason.

Knowing that left him only one logical option. He reached for the phone resting on the nightstand beside his bed and decided to call his high school buddy. He dialed the sheriff's department and was eventually connected to newly-hired Deputy Charles Pratt.

"Chuck," Dean said. "I owe you lunch for the ride last night. Can you meet me at the dinner today?"

"You buying?" he replied and got an affirmative answer. "Then hell yes. I gotta be in court at noon for a hearing on speeding tickets so get there early—say 11. They'll be serving lunch by then. Hey, I forgot to mention it last night, but did you hear about Lucy?"

"Yeah," Dean swallowed hard. "I read about her in the paper this morning. You're Mister Insider now. You can tell me all about it at 11."

"Not much to say," Chuck sighed. "A fluky accident is all. Man, I just saw her that morning. Just goes to show you."

"Show you what?"

"You never know when your time's up," Chuck replied.

"If only," Dean mumbled before disconnecting.

**-oOoOoOo-**

As mid-morning rolled around with bright sunshine acting as deceptive camouflage for the still freezing temperatures, Winchester Auto Repair was experiencing an expected (if chaotic) increase in calls for tows as batteries died and drivers landed their cars in ditches after the previous night's snow. John left his two workers to man the repairs that were in the bays and took over the phones while his other employee took out the tow truck to fetch the next round of customers.

Despite the active morning, his mind kept straying to home and history. Home was easily explainable. He was worried about Dean and felt for the kid. He had just learned the girl John was certain was more than a spit swap partner in high school was going to be cremated that day and a private funeral held for just her family the day after Christmas. Dean held no torch for the late-Lucy Reese, but the few people on the planet Dean allowed to know the real him (rather than just the façade) were ones he actually liked. Lucy Reese had been a member of that small circle.

The history reason niggling at John's mind was less obvious and nearly impossible to quantify. Until he read about the discovery of the body days earlier, he'd never heard of the Simpson House. He'd never even heard of Polly Decker Road, but that didn't mean it wasn't famous in its own way in Sioux Falls. Local legends, particularly those of the haunting variety, often got passed around by the younger set. John did not grow up in Sioux Falls. His sons had to some extent, but he was not going to ask them if they knew spine-tingling tales about the house. He and Mary had a pact. There would be no mention by either of them of anything supernatural to their children. Ever.

However, that didn't mean John couldn't ask another local expert. The trouble was, he was out of town and unreachable. That left John with only one reasonable option: Call Harvelle's Roadhouse.

Bill and Ellen Harvelle ran a dive bar that served greasy food to truckers and hunters who passed through eastern Nebraska in the vicinity of Dakota City. Their joint was actually 15 miles from Dakota City, but the town was a speck on a map and was only found by those specifically looking for it. The out of the way nature of the place made it an ideal locale for hunters needing a meal, a drink, or a hand. It also left the Harvelle's as a hub of sorts for information. Ellen served in that role fairly often, playing dispatcher and messenger between hunters when her husband was on the road. She gave up hunting when their daughter arrived, but she never convinced Bill he to do the same.

"Uh, Harvelle's," an unsure voice answered as John phoned the hole in the wall establishment. "What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for Ellen," John replied. "Tell her it's John Winchester."

"Winchester?" the confused voice with the slight southern twang replied. "Like the rifle?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry, no can do, compadre," he answered. "There's been a… well, something happened and…. Wait. Hold on."

The sound of a moderately full if subdued room filled the line as the phone got handed off, and the voice John needed to hear but did not expect to locate chimed in.

"Mary?" Bobby Singer questioned.

"No, it's me," John answered his neighbor, the man who his sons adopted as a family member six years earlier when the family settled in Sioux Falls just down the road from the junkman/hunter.

"John," Bobby's voice flattened. "What's wrong? The boys okay? What about Mary?"

"They're fine, mostly," John said. "Dean just got home last night. Looks like hell; probably feels like hell too, but some of that is what happened this morning, which is why I'm calling. I was actually going to leave a message with Ellen to see if she could locate you."

"You need something?"

"Information," John said, lowering his voice out of caution and closing the door to his small office at the back of the shop. "What do you know about the Simpson house here in town?"

"The what?" Bobby questioned. "Where is it? Who lives there?"

"No one lives there," he answered. "It is an abandoned farmhouse on Polly Decker Road."

"You mean the Decker farm," Bobby corrected him. "They owned a chunk of land east of my place on the other side of those woods. Ran a farm there through the 40's, I guess. Now that I think about it, the youngest daughter married a guy named Simpson. Had a couple kids. Wife died in the '50s. Son died in Korea not long after. Daughter ran off to California or something like that—wanted to be the next Marilyn Monroe. I think her father took off to bring her home, but he never came back. Why?"

"So that house never had any… activity?" John asked painfully.

"Activity?" Bobby repeated. "You mean a ghost? No. Why?"

"Someone died there last Friday—one of Dean's friends from high school," he said.

"Deputy Dipshit or Loose Barbie?" Bobby asked.

It wasn't a deep bench when listing those who could be considered Dean's friends. The former Sheriff's idiot son was Dean's tagalong and shadow, a baseball buddy who played catcher and took a few too many shots to the head without a helmet when runners stole home. The other candidate was his Friday night entertainment, a one woman harem who asked nothing of him but also offered nothing in return other than fun fondling in the back of a pickup.

"It was Lucy Reese," John reported. "The Sheriff ruled her death an accident. Slipped on the ice, hit her head, then laid out in the freezing temperatures all night and died of exposure."

Bobby sighed. It wasn't impossible. It didn't sound suspicious exactly. There was never any sign of trouble at the old dwelling. Then again, no one ever went there. It was out of the way (which usually attracted kids looking for trouble and party spots), but there was no electricity or water there once the family pulled up stakes so even the local delinquents avoided it. There were plenty of other spots that lured the local teens. The quarry up the road from Bobby's salvage yard was the true prime real estate for lover's lane liaisons and bonfire bashes.

"Never been anything there before," Bobby said. "You think there's something?"

"No," he sighed. "I just… I thought I should check. Mary said she had a feeling something was… off. Then this girl dies. Actually, the girl died first. Then Mary got to worrying about Dean coming home. You know what, I'm blowing this out of proportion. Forget it."

Bobby allowed the man his moment of suspicion, whether it was triggered by his own tingling nerves from a limited career as a hunter or whether it was jump-started by his wife's Jedi level senses. The Winchesters were always looking out for anything odd that might in anyway get within a mile of their kids—not that Bobby blamed them (or didn't act the same way himself). He just didn't see any dark shapes on the horizon because of a winter accident. The only thing that gave him any pause was learning the identity of the victim, and even that feeling wasn't so much a worry about anything supernatural as it was general concern for how Dean might take the girl's death. Rumors about still waters running deep were an apt estimation of what went on behind Dean Winchester's green eyes. Since leaving the most turbulent of his teenage years behind, he had developed a poker face of epic proportions to the point that even Bobby, who knew the boy like he knew his own handwriting, now occasionally wondered what was going on in the kid's head.

"How's Dean taking the news?" he asked solemnly.

"He said he was shocked then said he didn't want to talk about it," John replied. "He's still fighting with Sam so that's not helping."

"Idgits," Bobby grumbled. "Well, let them know I won't be around for the holiday. Won't be back until the New Year probably."

"Why?" John asked. "You out of retirement?"

Since the Winchester boys took up residence down the road, the old hunter had hung up his salt guns and made himself the hunter's helper in the form of head researcher or fake law enforcement supervisor, news editor, or whatever it was the roving band of monster killers needed on the phone in a pinch. Bobby had left town with little notice and fewer details a few days earlier, and it was the longest he'd been gone from Sioux Falls since the Winchesters began calling the town home.

"Pulled off the bench for an emergency," he said with regret. "Ellen called me. Bill was in a bind. He hunted a while back with this nutcase called Gordon Walker, fancies himself the Vampire Slayer. Well, Bug-Eyed Buffy got a hair across his ass when Bill and Jefferson rolled into town looking for the fang Gordon was hunting. They spooked the nest or rousted some of it—depends on which story you hear. Gordon wasn't pleased. He decided to flush what was left into the open so he set them on Bill and Jefferson, who had moved on to another town and another case. The thing is, when those bloodsuckers get your scent, it's for life. The way Jefferson tells it, once the vamps tracked them, it turned into a bloodbath in an old warehouse outside of Peoria. Gordon took one head then got his own bashed in. He crawled into concrete and steel room to bleed in peace while Jefferson and Bill took on three vamps. Jefferson got one, but another got the drop on Bill. He was hurt bad. Jefferson was sure he was done for himself with two ready to chomp on him when some guy, another hunter, showed up. He took out one of the fangs. The other ran. Jefferson decided to follow that one thinking Bill was already gone."

"Was he?" John asked with dread.

He'd never seen a vampire kill, only heard about them from a crazed hunter named Daniel Elkins in Colorado. The old hermit claimed he had the only surefire way to kill a vamp but would never say what it was. All stories told by those who knew him said he used a machete like the rest of them, but there was something in Elkins' eyes that made John not so sure. What he was sure of was that he was glad he never faced a bloodsucker. They were among the most vicious and nearly indestructible monsters that roamed the land. Just thinking about them gave the former Marine chills.

"Bill was nearly gone, but this new guy, Hawkins," Bobby explained with a touch of thankfulness in his strained voice, "he hauled Bill to his car and got him to the ER. They got Bill stable enough that he was able to call Ellen and talk to her and their daughter and at least say goodbye before…"

John groaned as the old hunter fell silent. Bobby roughly explained that Jefferson finally returned, guilt ridden about not killing the fang that escaped and felt worse still after learning he left his friend behind still pumping blood. Like Bobby, Jefferson wanted to thank the mysterious Hawkins, but the guy had disappeared before Jefferson arrived at the hospital. He called Bobby, who was on route still. The two hunters then bogarted the body from the morgue. Bobby reported they had just brought it back to Nebraska that morning. They'd be holding a hunters funeral that evening.

"How is Ellen?" John asked.

She was a strong woman in his recollection. He owed her for her role in extricating his sons from their custody in Chicago so that they could return home. John wasn't sure how to repay that, but hearing her husband had just died trying to rid the world of a vicious menace reminded him that the universe didn't seem to care if there were good deeds, good men, or thanks given when there was a job well done.

"She's shattered but don't show it," Bobby sighed. "The daughter is hell-bent on hunting down Gordon. I recommended Ellen handcuff Jo to her to keep an eye on her. She's turning 16 in a couple months and apparently can already hotwire a car and fields strip a rifle as well as I can. She was her daddy's girl and now she wants blood."

John nodded. He understood wanting to kill the thing that took your family. He wanted that, even when he thought it was a man, after his boys disappeared. He had wanted to drain the life out of whoever (or whatever) stole his family. Now, years later, he just wanted to forget all of that and all he knew about what might be responsible and how to put down any of those threats. It reminded him suddenly of Dean's odd comment the night before: _I get why some people go off on their own to live in the middle of nowhere away from everything._

"She was raised in the life?" John asked, shaking the chill from his bones that his son's words raised.

"Yeah," Bobby said. "Bill and Ellen thought the best way to protect her was to let her know what was out there. Ellen don't want her hunting—Bill didn't either, but he made sure she knew how to shoot and throw knives, just in case."

John heard the mild rebuke in the man's tone. Bobby disagreed with the Winchester's decision to keep their sons in the dark about what lurked in the shadows. There was a time when it appeared the revelation was inevitable, after a camping trip nearly turned deadly when a Wendigo went after Sam and Dean. Somehow, the big lie that it was just a bear caught on and no more was said about the terrifying adventure.

"I'll tell Mary and the boys you're out of town for a funeral," John said quickly. "We'll see you when you get back. Thanks for the information on the Simpson or Decker house, whatever it is. Good to know there's nothing there."

"It's just two miles from my place as the crow flies," Bobby assured him. "If anything was there, I'd have hunted it years ago."

**-oOoOoOo-**

Emery's Diner sat in the middle of Crazy Horse Avenue, a fairly busy chute off North Main Street. The diner was not a favorite haunt for police, prosecutors, or local politicians as it was far from the municipal offices. That alone endeared it to Dean. It was also just two blocks from the high school, which made it a convenient stop for him when he used to go from school to his afterschool job at an autoparts store just down the street. The people at the diner didn't much care what was new or popular in Sioux Falls. They liked gossip as much as anyone, but they were a blue collar crowd—city road and sanitation workers, construction crews, utility workers, and even a few mechanics from Dean's father's shop. The place had a familiar feel to it for Dean, and the waitresses (one old enough to have babysat him and the other old enough to be his mother) liked to flirt with him. He obliged usually as it often got him a slightly bigger slice of piece or extra strip of bacon.

"Welcome home, Hon, and Merry Christmas," Martha Blanchard said, the aging and doughy waitress who had worked there nearly all of her adult life. "The usual?"

Dean nodded as she jotted down his order of a bacon cheeseburger with fries. When Chuck arrogantly said "me, too" she offered him a blank stare and made him give his order—the same one as Dean. Dean smirked. He was certain Martha knew precisely what the deputy wanted to order; she just disliked him on principle as his father put her son in jail for boosting cars years earlier.

The frigid air left a heavy frost ring around the diner's windows, partially obscuring the street where passersby hurried along with their faces buried in scarves and immense plumes of frozen breath escaping like lost souls. The warmth and bustle of the diner kept Dean sufficiently distracted from the street that he did not see the tall, stick-like kid who happened by, nearly tripping over his recently big feet upon spotting Dean seated in a booth. With troubling thoughts and a desire to hitch a ride rather than shiver his way to the library, Sam Winchester ducked into the diner and slid into the booth behind the one occupied by his brother and the jackass that liked to claim he was Dean's best friend. As Sam did, the duo's order arrived.

"One bacon cheeseburger—I had them throw on extra bacon for you-and curly fries," Martha winked at Dean. "Let me refill that coffee for ya, Hon."

"I could use a refill, too," Chuck said eagerly as she slapped down his plate with a clatter without bothering to recite his order.

"Sally's got some left in her pot from early this morning," Martha snarled. "This one's fresh."

"Right, so why don't you just…," Chuck began, leaving Sam smirking mercilessly at his attempt to get remotely kind service only to fail with the older woman ignored him.

"Dean, honey, can I get you anything else?" she asked. "You look they're starving you at that school."

"No thanks, sweetheart," he replied smoothly (as expected), which left the departing 50-year-old giggling like a teenager whose crush just looked in her direction.

"Mean, old bitch," Chuck grumbled as he viciously spattered his burger with ketchup.

"Hey," Dean warned. "She is not. Your dad was a dick to her. She's just repaying the favor."

Chuck scoffed.

"That's him, not me," he complained.

"Yeah, well, we pay for our parents' screw-ups sometimes," Dean remarked in a voice that struck Sam as both cold and wise beyond measure with sorrow and understanding.

"I'll bet that old bat wouldn't even smile at me if I paid her $100 to do it," Chuck grumbled.

"Well, why don't you try that next time," Dean suggested. "So, what's the news in 5-0 Land?"

What Chuck offered did not surprise Sam much. Sioux Falls was not a small town, but it was not a bustling metropolis either. If anything big had occurred recently, everyone would be talking about it (including the elder Winchesters parents, who would have mentioned it to Dean if he bothered to stay in touch with any of them, Sam thought viciously). For the most part, Dean seemed uninterested in what Chuck related. Sam used to wonder why Dean was friends with Chuck. After a while, he realized it was mostly because Chuck never asked anything of Dean and didn't seem to care what anyone else thought of him. Chuck just liked hanging out with the Sioux Falls version of James Dean. There was a rebellious and surly air about Sam's older brother that made many people talk about Dean and more than a few want to be friends with him but left very few brave enough to try to actually know him. Sam always found that reaction laughable. His older brother had a steely glare and brusque ways about him, but he was actually kind of a teddy bear deep inside. Sam knew that, in truth, the only person Dean really didn't like on the planet was himself.

That reminder tugged on the knot that formed in his chest at the breakfast table that morning. Yes, he was still mad at Dean. No, he did not want to just drop his anger like the issue causing it never happened. But the look on Dean's face as he read his sort of ex-girlfriend's name in the paper haunted Sam. It had hurt Dean, honestly cut him deeply and caused him pain in a way that Sam had not seen since the year their mother nearly died of cancer. All morning in his classes, Sam kept straying to that hollow and hurt look and felt a desperate urge to do something to stop it. When he was little and afraid or sick or hurting, Dean always found a way to make it better. Most of the time, it was just knowing Dean was there and he wasn't alone that did it for Sam.

Unfortunately, that would not work for Dean. He was a loner. He liked to pretend he didn't need anyone, and while Sam really didn't buy that, he also knew that his older brother had proven it sufficiently to himself to the point that Dean believed it. It was, in fact, one of the reasons Sam was not currently speaking to him.

Sam also knew he could not do for Dean what he had done for his mother when she was ailing. Prayers, Sam realized, only worked on those who believed. His mother always said there were forces of good in the universe and they took care of the bad things. She even said once that there were angels watching over all of them. Sam was certain that was true. His mother recovered, almost miraculously, from what should have been a fatal bout of cancer. He knew she had done it through the wonders of science, a desire to live, and her youngest son's prayers.

Dean didn't believe in guardians of the universe. He didn't believe in God or angels. He didn't even believe in doing homework on time, calling to check-in when required, or obeying the law if it was inconvenient for him to do so. Saying a prayer for Dean Winchester would have been a waste of time and breath, his little brother knew. But that didn't mean Sam wasn't willing to try something to help. Being mad at Dean was one thing; watching him suffer and doing nothing to try to make it stop was something else.

"So, about Lucy," Dean began as Chuck ran out of other things to say. "She really just smacked her head and died?"

"Well, kind of," Chuck said lowering his voice, forcing Sam to press further into the booth behind them to listen. "Being in the cold overnight would have done her in. The paper got part of it right. She did have a head injury, a bad one. I just don't see how she got it. There was no blood on the ice from an impact. Like, she was face down near the driver's door, like she crawled there. There were marks near the front steps of the house 20 feet away like she might have fallen, but unless she jumped off the porch, they shouldn't have been that far from porch steps."

"And the cops don't think that's strange?" Dean asked.

"They think they got girl who didn't bother to wear a winter coat because it would cover her silk suit and didn't bother to wear winter boots because she'd rather wear high heels even in rotten weather," Chuck explained. "Come on, Dean. You know how Lucy was. She liked being looked at. Her reputation makes the theory that she wasn't dressed for the weather so it made her take a tumble pretty likely. I'm just the department moron who got hired before my dad got voted out of office. I'm the youngest guy on staff, so what the hell do I know about anything?"

Dean grunted. Whether he was disagreeing or agreeing, Sam could not tell.

"What's the story with the house where she died?" Dean asked.

There was a forced casualness in his tone that perked Sam's interest. Dean didn't go for chitchat or gossip. He never cared about any history of Sioux Falls, and he never asked questions unless he had a direct need to know something.

"No story," Chuck replied through a mouthful of fries. "Old farmhouse. Family left back when my dad was a kid. The daughter ran off to be a movie star and failed. She actually babysat my old man. He said she was kind of bitch, a real shallow piece of shit, kind of like Lucy, I guess."

"Hey," Dean snarled.

"I just meant the daughter was a cheerleader and part of the look-at-me crowd, too, in her day back in the '50s," Chuck relented. "She ran off after graduation and left her old man. Sounds like it was a sad time for the family. Her mom died then her bother bit it in Korea. When she ran away, the old man went to find her and never came back. I guess he settled in California. The daughter returned this fall and sold the place to the Halston Group—they're the construction and real estate douchebags who do those shitty radio commercials that always end with '_let us make one of our houses your home_.' Lucy was going to marry one of them."

Dean huffed. Everything he heard about Lucy's death was mundane and did not point to anything evil or undead as the cause of it. He sighed and wondered if his recent exposure to the other side of the world left him unable to see anything but the awful possibilities—even when they did not exit. Still, his spidey senses were tingling, telling him that he should at least look into the possibility. That truly would be the only way he could put his worries to rest.

He continue his lunch with Martha eventually bringing him a slice of pie (on the house as a Christmas gift) and still forgetting to refresh Chuck's coffee and not bothering to ask if he wanted to order dessert. Over the course of the meal, Dean ate mechanically. His felt nauseous if he moved too swiftly and twisted in anyway as the pain in his side lanced through him. That morning using a needle and dental floss, he sewed up the loose stitches holding the cut on his chest together. He downed the last of the antibiotics he swiped from the hunter's kit he found at the warehouse where he had tracked a vamp in Illinois. He figured lifting the dying man's stash of infection fighting drugs was fair payment for hauling his nearly lifeless, bleeding ass to the ER. He knew the man would not survive the night, but Dean saw he wore a wedding ring and he babbled the names Ellen and Joe in his delirium. That told Dean the man had a family. He hoped the doctors could patch him up enough so that he could get in some final words to them. Failing that, they would at least be notified of his death once his identity was discovered, assuming they were not already dead themselves. Hunters didn't have families, Dean was learning. It was often the loss of a family that brought them into the profession.

He had been on some hunts and seen massacred families, but most of his experience was in tracking demons. Those tended to crop up a lot in the vicinity of South Bend—something he learned from the source of their interest, his landlord, Father Frank Reardon. The rest of the campus knew the old man as a tight-assed professor in a starchy collar; Dean knew him as a retired Vatican exorcist. Demons flocked to him like moths to flame, but like the actual flame, Reardon was untouchable as long as he remained on certain parts of the campus. It was Dean who was sent out to deal with the black-eyed visitors, which was convenient for Reardon and (Dean had come to believe) fitting for the college sophomore. One of those hell bitches would take him out in a few short years. The least he could do was send some of their smoky asses back to the pit first.

What initially what brought Dean and the retired exorcist together was the man's hunting old friend and honorary Winchester family member, Bobby Singer. Somehow, Dean's high school warden and history teacher, Norman Phelps, was in the mix as well. Their intentions in making the introduction were surely strictly supervisory. Both men knew Dean well and figured a man who used to track and banish demons might have a fair chance of keeping Dean in line at college. Neither knew that Dean knew what they did in their spare time and what was in all those dusty books each man kept, and neither knew Dean used what was in them once and it ended up being his death warrant.

But that was something Father Reardon did know. Dean was going to be a victim of the thing he helped Reardon hunt. At the tender age of 16, terrified of losing his mother to a dreadful disease, Dean reached out to something powerful and predatory to save her. He hadn't researched the process well; he didn't understand the ramifications of his agreement. All he knew was that one little kiss saved his mother. That it truncated his life and left him knowing precisely when he would die hardly seemed to matter to him. Granted, he was shocked when he learned during his freshman year at Notre Dame what he had done after he spent an afternoon looking at the books in Reardon's library. Learning of his stupidity and mistake gave him a sense of defeat, yet it also seemed fitting. He knew he wouldn't amount to much in life. Ending as puppy chow for a hellhound at least let him know he'd go out with some action.

He confessed to Reardon what he'd done. The old man took Dean's words in stride and let him know there was nothing he could do to save him from the pit, but he said that didn't mean there was no hope. Reardon knew how to find, trap, and banish demons. He knew little about crossroads deals other than how they ended; his job had been to rid the world of the ones offering those contracts. However, he confirmed what Dean suspected after reading Bobby's journal: There was a roving band of warriors known as hunters in the land who might know things the Vatican didn't. They had first-hand, 20th century working knowledge about fighting evil. The boys in Vatican City stuck to their 12th century playbook because the flowery language both worked and gave them comfort. So the good father armed Dean with books, salt, and holy water then set him loose on the evil dwelled in the regions surrounding the campus.

Dean had notches in his proverbial belt for exorcisms (three), shapeshifters (four), and after his route home hitchhiking from truck stop to truck stop his second vampire. He'd met a couple hunters on his cases, gaining their trust using his assumed name and dropping the name Bobby Singer once or twice casually without claiming he knew the man well. The rough men who roamed the back roads looking for monsters were a coarse but dedicated lot, he learned. They taught him about having a variety of fake IDs and badges; how to ask the right questions without stirring up too much suspicion; and how to suture a wound so he could avoid hospitals as much as possible. They offered their knowledge because they were appreciative of his youthful speed, sharp aim, and ability to take direction while acting relatively calm in tense situations. Then, at the end of each escapade, their new protégé (Jack Hawkins) disappeared into the landscape with a bland farewell that he hoped to see them again sometime.

With just six years left on his contract, Dean doubted he would cross paths with any of them again. At least, he wouldn't if he kept to his idiotic class schedule. Remaining in school was something he saw as pointless, but he was keeping a promise. His mother begged him to go to school and while she never asked that he graduate, Dean suspected she expected he would finish what he started. He felt he would do more good with his meager and waning life if he just hit the road and killed as many evil things as he could, but for now he was going through the motions to keep his mother happy. The only upside he saw was stiffing the banks for the loans he never intended to repay. The problem was, hunting and playing student was taking its toll. Cuts, bruises, burns, and broken bones were part of his life. Exhaustion and nightmares now were as well. Hiding all of that from the civilians of the world was nearly as difficult as keeping his real identity secret as he hunted and avoiding while the police in the process.

"Well, I better get my ass to the courthouse," Chuck sighed. "I'm working on Christmas then have to go to Omaha to my Aunt Eloise's with my father for New Year's Eve—something about her keeping me in her will since she ain't got kids. Give me a call after the First, and don't even think about slipping out of town to go back to Indiana like you did last summer. We are making plans for me to come see you this spring. It's either Spring Break in Florida or you gotta show me what one of the big university frat parties is like."

"I wouldn't know," Dean said. "I got my nose stuck in a book or I'm working my ass off to pay the bills lately."

"Bullshit," Chuck said as he rose. "You living like a monk? Dean, I was there the night you got Lucy to leave Chris Zepher's party with you by using just two words. The Queen of the Tease strolled up to you all flirty like she did every other guy and said 'wanna dance?' All you said was 'wrong verb' and walked her out of there like she was a devoted Golden Retriever on a leash. No way college girls are harder flowers to pluck than picky Lucy was. You've got to have four or five who you rotate through. I know you, man."

Sam's face felt hot with embarrassment, but he was not sure why. Dean's proclivity to attract eager girls was not news to him. Hearing the envy in Chuck's voice and the confidence in his belief that Dean was something of a slut did not sit well with the high school sophomore, but Dean's dry chuckle was as good as an admission.

"Well," Dean said, "I do take the occasional coffee break while I'm working."

Chuck crowed with laughter and clapped his pal on the shoulder as he headed back to work grinning foolishly. Dean's smothered yelp was missed by everyone except Sam, who was literally inches from him in the next booth. The younger Winchester pressed himself into the booth further as he heard Dean rise from his seat. Sam was planning to follow him and strategically bump into him so that he could seek a ride home rather than go to the library and wait for his mother to give him a lift during her lunch break. However, Dean did not head for the door. Instead, he walked to the far corner, passing Sam without noticing him as he ducked under the table. At the back of the diner was a pay phone tucked into a tiny alcove near the men's room. As Dean approached it, Sam slipped out of his seat and nestled himself into another booth close enough to hear some of the conversation. What he heard first wrinkled his brow. It next got him out of his hiding place to full blatantly listen, and absolutely left him wondering which of his parents he should speak to.

**-oOoOoOo-**

Dean tucked himself as far into the small nook just outside the urinal closet as possible. The diner was not as busy as he hoped so there was a chance his voice would carry; however, it was just noisy enough that he had to speak up to be heard.

"Yeah, I know it's thin," he said after explaining what he knew about Lucy's demise. "But it might be something."

"Dean, there are so many things it could be including simply an accident," Father Frank Reardon advised. "It doesn't sound like a demon. That's what I've trained you to face. You've done some independent study—against my advice—and have learned a bit about other entities, but this does not sound like any case you have tackled before. I suggest you call Bobby Singer and leave it to someone with greater experience."

"He's not here," Dean said through gritted teeth worrying that if he did nothing someone else would get hurt and that would be his fault. "It looks like he's been out of town for a few days. I can't just let this go and wait for him to return. The guys I've met told me that if you catch a case, you run with it. Finders keepers rules, Padre."

"You do realize that your current predicament does not protect you?" the priest reminded him. "You were guaranteed up to 10 years. The crossroads demon did not promise you that you were invincible during that time. If you encounter something you cannot handle and die, you will go to Hell early. Dean, I am trying to keep you here as long as possible. You've learned so much. There are a lot of people you can still help. And need I remind you that the more you focus on the work of demons, the greater chance you have of learning if there is a way to save yourself?"

Dean scoffed. It was weird talking to Reardon sometimes. The guy was part Ra's ah Ghul and part Yoda with a dash of Louis Gossett's character from _An Officer And A Gentleman_. Dean knew he was the man's tool to get in some licks on the black-eyed bitches who kept him trapped on the sacred ground of the campus after spending three decades fighting on behalf the church. Dean also knew that the man was sincere in his desire to help Dean find a way to save his soul—if only to avoid him returning to the earth as yet another monster for the priest would have to eradicate.

"I know it would be easier if I quit school," Dean sighed. "That's what I want to do and what I should do…"

"That is not what I want nor is it what we are talking about right now," Reardon scolded. "I have tried to teach you this for two years. I want you to think before you act, Dean. What I don't want you to do is make an emotional decision when you should be strategic. The dead woman was a friend. I am sorry for your loss. I agree there are a few questions that might perk the interest of a hunter, but you are not qualified. Wait for Bobby to return and give this to him."

"By telling him what?" Dean snarled. "Hey, Bobby, there's this great big fucking secret I'm keeping and by the way, while hiding it I discovered something you should know? Now, do me a favor and take care of it without letting on to my family. Oh, while you're at it, make up some crap lie for them when I'm found dead in…"

His voice trailed off as a prickling sensation began on his neck. He spun around, biting the inside of his cheek as the twist of his torso tugged on the stitches. Behind him he saw the startled, wide eyes of his younger brother. Sam stood in the hallway 10 feet from Dean with his jaw hanging slack and an avalanche of questions evidently forming on his lips.

"I'll be back in three weeks if not sooner," Dean said swiftly then hung up and growled at Sam. "So what, now you're a snoop and a bitch?"

"Dean?" Sam began as he blinked in surprise. "What is going on?"

**-oOoOoOo-**

**_A/N: _**More to come.


	3. Chapter 3

-**oOoOoOo**-

Talking Dean into giving him a ride home proved easy once Sam did what he considered to be negotiating (although Dean snarled, said he was a little bitch, and called it blackmail). Sam simply said if Dean wouldn't let his little brother sit in the car as he drove home, then little brother would just have to go to the library and explain big brother's bizarre behavior and everything he overheard to their mother.

After being called bitch (and not in the loving way Dean normally did), Sam was treated to total silence (no radio even) during the ride home. Dean parked the car beside the house and exited the car swiftly. He closed the door to the house in Sam's face as he entered. The moment they arrived, the phone began ringing. Sam was kicking off his boots (as required) as Dean walked by the instrument like it made no noise.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Sam asked.

"I don't live here anymore," Dean said as he crossed the room (boots still on in violation of the house rules). "I just had lunch with only person left in this town I talk to. That call isn't for me."

Without further comment, he descended into the basement. Sam seethed then rushed to snatch the phone before the trilling stopped.

"Hello?" he answered breathlessly.

"Sam?" his mother inquired. "I expected Dean to answer. When you didn't come to the library, I thought you must be on the bus. How did you get home so quickly? The bus always takes at least an hour."

"I got a ride from Dean," he explained.

"Are you two getting along?" she asked.

"We're… not fighting," Sam offered without bothering to add _since we're not talking_. "He's in the basement."

"In the basement" was family code for "Dean wants to be left alone." The cellar at the house was a dark and damp space that housed a heavy weight punching and kicking bag as well as a weight bench and a few cushioned floor mats to facilitate sparring matches. John had determined Dean needed a space—close to home—where he could practice Krav Maga in a safe spot. The fairly exotic martial art was one such way he managed to vent the emotions he kept bottled up inside until they erupted when he reached a breaking point.

The threadbare, subterranean gym allowed Dean to practice and unwind where his parents could keep an eye on him on volatile days. When not venting frustration, he simply spent time there keeping his moves sharp or teaching Sam defense techniques. During high school, Dean occasionally gave short lessons to both Chuck and Lucy (at different times and with differing levels of interest and success). Chuck was way too fond of the TV show "Walker: Texas Ranger" and needed a lot of help to live up to Norris's example. Lucy's visits were even more pointless in Sam's opinion. Those prompted the Winchester parents to install two small mirrors—one near the top of the stairs set at a precise angle to meet the reflection of the other stationed in the corner of the basement. The arrangement allowed anyone upstairs a quick view at whatever was going on below. Sam recalled that they got used particularly when the sounds of bag strikes from practice kicks and punches stopped but Lucy's giggling did not.

As Mary advised Sam to just let Dean blow off some steam, she also began giving him chores for the afternoon (ones she evidently intended initially to give to his brother but abandoned as soon as she learned he was doing a therapy session punching things in the basement). Sam distantly heard his mother's instructions about taking a casserole out of the refrigerator at a certain time and putting it in the oven. As he listened, his eyes stray to the laundry room that held both the all-telling mirror and the door to the basement. Huffs and grunts could be heard below. He noted that Dean at least obeyed one house rule, the one requiring that the basement door be left open whenever anyone went down stairs. Their mother might claim she was concerned about the poor air circulation in the cavern below, but Sam knew it was mostly so that she could see what was going on downstairs.

Sam mumbled his agreement to do as his mother asked then disconnected. Putting thoughts of dinner out of his mind, his eyes narrowed on the reflection in the mirror. He walked slowly toward the basement door to sharpen his gaze. Although the mirrors were not as high tech as a spy camera, Sam had enough of a view to make his pulse quicken with worry.

Dean was in front of the heavy bag, hitting it mercilessly with straight on regular punches like a boxer. He had stripped off his over shirt and T-shirt, exposing his arms and torso. Bruises of varying degrees of healing wallpapered his back. There were red marks like scars on his upper arms. As he turned when the bag began to spin, Sam saw his brother's front side. There was an ugly hash of what appeared to be bloody twine along one of his ribs and an ugly black welt below it. Just above those, on Dean's left pectoral, was a black design that looked like a radiating sun with odd squiggles in the center. Oblivious to the observation, Dean continued to punch the bag. As pain bit deeply into his expression, blood erupted from his knuckles but did not slow or lessen the thrust of each following strike.

Sam's chin hung loose, and he backed away from the mirror slowly. While the urge to storm down the stairs and stop Dean while demanding answers was strong, Sam instead backed away. He remained pissed at his brother for ignoring his family for nearly half a year like they no longer mattered. Sam was also irritated by Dean's surly attitude as if it was a chore to be around his family. But something stronger was taking root in Sam's bones.

It was fear.

A little voice in his head told him that whatever was going on was serious and Dean was in trouble—just not the kind he normally found that involved a need to be grounded and get a Dad lecture. The ripple of fear under Sam's skin and the twist in his stomach said Dean needed protection not punishment. So, the younger Winchester began doing stock of what he knew. Dean was acting weird. It was more than just being tired from his long bus ride home; Dean wasn't much of a sleeper normally so tired and a little cranky was his usual setting. He was dealing with the shock of Lucy dying, but Chuck let him know it was a sad accident no one could have prevented (except Lucy herself). That left Sam wondering what else was actually bothering his older brother. It prompted Sam to do what his teachers said he did better than anyone in his grade: research. To manage that, he went on a secret mission: searching Dean's room.

Dean was not precisely territorial about his room. He didn't own much, and the only things he ever hid were the magazines of naked women that he flashed at Sam and winked letting him know if he wanted a peek he just needed to ask. Skin magazines aside, Sam currently knew the entire contents of Dean's room. Most of what he owned went to his tiny apartment in Indiana. When he left for school, it was almost like he had never been in the family's home at all. When he did, Sam felt a profound loss at his departure. He had never known life without Dean being either right by his side or within hailing distance most hours of the day. Dean's absence brought a pronounced quiet to the house that felt a lot like someone had died.

To get through the initial adjustment without him when he left two years earlier, Sam would sometimes sit in his brother's room alone after school before his parents got home. It had helped him not miss Dean so much to be surrounded by what remained of the scent that Sam came to associate as his brother: part baseball glove leather, part engine oil, part cut grass—all hints of a physical life. Dean's room was always Spartan in its décor even before he departed. All that remained once he left were his baseball MVP trophy, a bat that hung on the wall from the homerun he hit to help the team win its state title, and half of a broken CD that he pegged to the wall beneath his bat. The ruined music disc was a trophy as well like a medal for winning a great battle. It was a remnant of their ruined camping trip years ago and a reminder of perseverance in the face of adversity. That half-moon of shiny plastic saved the Winchester boys' lives when they got lost after a bear attacked in the woods. Dean kept his head, spent all his concentration and energy on hauling his injured brother to safety then used his wily, practical solution-oriented mind to summon the help they needed.

Sam ran his finger over the rounded edge of the snapped Led Zeppelin CD. He wondered if looking at it again would help Dean by reminding him what it represented and what it proved he could accomplish.

"You're were a hero, Dean," Sam said softly, feeling slightly more guilty (yet still a bit justified) about his harsh greeting to his brother upon his return home.

From what the little Sam heard of Dean's phone call, his brother had forgotten that and forgotten that he could do the impossible when he just made up his mind to do it. It sounded like Dean was giving up and planned to quit college. That disappointed Sam and surprised him more than he expected. Despite his anger with Dean, Sam had come to expect that there really was nothing his big brother couldn't do if he just put his considerable will into the mix. _Dean was never comfortable in a classroom, but he got into Notre friggin' Dame_, Sam seethed as anger briefly spiked in his chest. It was one of the top 25 schools in the nation! And Dean did it with mediocre grades and a less than stellar discipline history. Sam didn't even recall Dean taking the SAT, but the university accepted him—and it was the only one Dean applied to. The how and the why behind that baffled Sam; he never could get a straight answer out of his brother when he asked about it. Dean preferred flip responses like: _They took one look at this and said that is just too fine to refuse_.

Sam knew the truth even if Dean wouldn't admit it. The university saw in him what Sam did: genius and unlimited potential.

Not that Sam felt he could say that to his brother. He tried at Dean's high school graduation to tell him how proud he was only to get accused of auditioning for a tampon commercial for his sappy, end of the month soliloquy. That angered Sam, but it was the part where Dean called the mini speech a soliloquy that cinched it. Dean had more brains behind his coarse mouth than he liked to let on. Sure, he struggled with the more flowery side of English literature, preferring Vonnegut to Shakespeare; he claimed all languages had too many rules which made them foreign to him, including English. He was good math processes but not necessarily swift with calculations until it involved torque ratios and RPMs in cars. Then he was as fast as and reliable as a computer. Sam knew that pointed to the root of what made his brother special: his passion.

Dean actually cared about things and people a lot more deeply than most realized, which was why his distance from Sam hurt so much. Dean had never been able to sever his bond from his brother—not even a little bit—until they lived apart most of a year. With his thoughts on the prestigious university souring quickly, Sam began picking through Dean's closet and found his eyes wide with shock and fright at what he found.

On the floor he found an army green canvas duffle bag. The last time Sam saw it, Dean was stuffing it into the washing machine, contents included. Sam thought the bag looked less full than it had that night. Closer inspection showed him it was stained a rusty brown on the bottom. Inside it he found a sliver flask with an ornate cross on the front. Cautiously, Sam opened it and took a sniff expecting to find some illegal spirits but found it odorless. He tipped a bit onto his hands then touched it to his tongue. It was only water. He also found a large salt container. He then located a notebook containing Dean's crisp penmanship—something Sam always thought odd. For such a lackadaisical student, Dean had naturally beautiful penmanship. Then again, Sam recalled, Dean also possessed graceful motor skills.

In the pages of the notebook were odd scribbles about locations and strange names: Dagon; Azazel; Crowley. There was also a fair amount of Latin, much of it rather ancient and all of it with a rudimentary phonetic pronunciation key beneath each phrase. What really got the hair on Sam's neck to stand up was not the language but the red and rust colored spatters (like those staining the bag) on some of the pages. Sam's biology lessons told him they could be only one thing: blood. The realization made him instantly think of the man injuries on his brother. Startled, he struggled to stand up and step away from the items. As he did, he reached to the closet wall to steady himself. While doing so, his hand brushed against something rigid that seemed out of place. He pushed back the clothing Dean left behind when he went to school: the button down shirts and ties the baseball team was required to wear to school the day of an away game; the suit his parents made him wear for graduation; and the coveralls he wore when he rebuilt his car at Bobby's. Sam pushed those aside and his eyes grazed another bag looped under a hanger holding the forgotten suit.

From previous forays into Dean's sparse kingdom, Sam knew the second bag was not there recently. It was a thin cloth sack. From the matching dried stain, it apparently once resided in the green canvas bag. In this second sack was a machete—the kind Sam read about jungle explorers and African warlords using to hack away whatever was in front of them. At the bottom of the bag, he found a handful of shotgun shells. His heart raced faster than the pistons of Dean's car's engine as he cautiously peered to the top shelf of the closet. Under the black sweatshirt Dean wore home, Sam located a sawed off shotgun.

A thought sprang instantly in his head and chilled him for he knew, like he knew his name, that it must be true. Most people might have seen those items and wondered if their brother was a serial killer, but that was not what made Sam tremble. Those implements of pain (coupled with what he heard that day and saw on Dean in the basement) made him think of something far worse to his mind.

His brother was hurting himself and might be contemplating suicide.

_-_**oOoOoOo**_-_

Dinner was a quiet affair that evening. Sam held his tongue out of sheer confusion after his archeological mission in Dean's room. Mary waited and watched silently to see whether her oldest appeared to be faring better than he had at breakfast. John watched both of his sons as Sam was now on his radar as well for his stiff posture and refusal to look up from his plate. Dean seemed oblivious to everyone else as he stared vacantly at nothing and only paid attention to his plate.

"What's with the hands?" John asked as he gestured to Dean's gashed knuckles.

"Forgot to wrap 'em with tape when I was working with the bag," he replied simply, paying the skinned, split, and scabbing knuckles no mind.

"Forgetting is becoming a new thing with you," John noted but relented in his inquiry as his wife cleared her throat.

Mary offered her spouse a warning glare then noted the amount of food still in Dean's plate. He had eaten a good portion, but the casserole was his favorite and he normally devoured two helpings. His first was still evident on the plate. Mary joked that he if didn't eat what was left, he wouldn't be getting any of the pie she brought home from the bakery.

"Martha, at the diner, already took care of my pie fix for the day," he replied sounding less surly than the morning but just as weary. "Face it, Mom. Ladies everywhere treat me because I'm adorable."

The words sounded like quintessential Dean bullshit, but the delivery was flat and stale as though it was scripted. John cleared his throat and decided if his oldest was at least going to be verbal, he could attempt to have some of the conversation he planned on holding with Dean before his surprise arrival occurred and through the house off-kilter.

"I'm fairly certain adorable isn't a recognized major at the university," John began. "You have to declare one of those before you start the next semester. What did you choose?"

Mary cleared her throat again and offered her husband a furrowed brow expression. He sounded a little authoritative and on the verge of giving an order. He and Dean did not generally butt heads when the elder Winchester offered his edicts or expectations—not any longer at least—but Dean still looked worn to her. All day she considered discussing with her husband whether they should encourage Dean to take a semester off. Granted, having him home would also be a great benefit to her peace of mind, but her deepest motivation was his welfare as it did not seem to be flourishing. John saw her expression and chose to ignore it as he turned his gaze fully on Dean, who looked startled by the question but the mechanics behind his eyes swiftly started scrambling for a response.

"I'm liking Undecided," Dean said. "It's fairly popular, and I seem to excel at it."

"Son, you need to declare," John insisted.

"To declare?" Dean offered a practiced grin. "What am I, a southern debutante? So far, nothing speaks to me."

"Speaks to you?" his father echoed. "You need a burning bush to pick a major?"

"The way things are going, probably," Dean muttered.

"What about something with math?" Mary suggested.

"They don't offer Advance Abacus," Dean shook his head. "I like those little bead things; they're fun to push around, and they spin when you flick 'em just right."

"Dean," she sighed but began to smile.

"Obviously," he continued, plastering a mask on his face that pained Sam to see for he knew what dwelled beneath it, "English is off the table since Sarcasm isn't an approved fields of study. Frankly, plain English feels like a cheap replacement. I'd consider music as an option since this hot chick from New Orleans I met offered to teach me Blues guitar, but I think you kind of need to know something about music _before_ you major in it. I could be wrong. I'm not all that clear on academic stuff."

The false, confident façade he offered stabbed at Sam. He wanted badly to stand up and yell at Dean, to tell him and their parents what he heard in the diner, saw in the basement, and found in Dean's room. But he refrained. Dean needed protection, he reminded himself. He didn't need a lecture. He didn't need the pressure of knowing he worried their parents. Mom might cry, and her tears always seemed to hurt Dean more than whatever pained her. Dad might yell, and Dean always retreated further into himself when that happened. Sam figured he was the only one who understood his brother enough that he could help. The only way to do it was to shelve his anger, hold his own hurt in abeyance, and start talking his brother again.

"How about Phys Ed?" Sam offered.

He was so eager to say anything that his words came out sharp, almost harsh. He had intended to sound light and funny, hopeful in a hedonistic way, as a means to encourage his brother to look on what Dean would consider the bright side. As three pairs of eyes at the table turned to him, Sam scrambled to fix the damage of his blunder.

"I mean," he said, "that way you could hang out in a gym and hit on girls all day."

The growl he heard in reply was not from his brother or his father. Surprisingly, it came from his mother who let him know she had a long chore list for him the next day. She then said if he was finished eating, he could go to his room and get his laundry ready because she didn't want the laundry room a mess on Christmas now that Dean was done with his. Sam nodded sullenly then bowed his head and shuffled away from the table. He silently told himself her mild scolding was probably just her excuse to get him out of earshot while she and his father had a talk with his brother about school.

As Sam left the room, Dean turned his head and watched his little brother slouch and depart. Dean shook his head and turned back to the inquisitive yet restrained expressions on both of his parents.

"What's his issue?" he asked them. "He attacked me when I got here. Since then, he's been wearing the perma-bitch face. For the record, I don't recall pissing in his Lucky Charms so either one of his geek friends did it or it's something you two did."

John offered a less than impressed look. Dean wilted under the gaze and pushed some noodles around in his plate while waiting for the predictable lecture about his mouth. When it came, it was not from his father nor was it much of a lecture.

"In Sam's defense, you showed up in the middle of the night," Mary reminded him. "That's why he accosted you."

"You have a lot of burglars who break in and start doing laundry?" he asked then snapped his fingers. "Right there, what I just said, totally Suma Cum Laude potential if they'd make Smart Ass a recognized degree field."

Rather than get roped into a discussion of any merit with them over school, his comments, or his recent trip home, Dean pushed carefully away from the table. When neither objected, he nodded to them and made his way in his bare feet up to his room. As he departed, John again took a glance at his feet and shook his head. Mary raised her eyebrows at his reaction.

"The nail polish?" she wondered, prompting her husband to wince as she began clearing plates from the table.

"Yeah," he said following suit. "I saw it when he was sleeping. I don't know if I even want to know about it."

"Well, I did so I asked when he came up from the basement as I got home," she reported. "It's blue polish and is the result of a bet he lost. From his grin, I suspect he lost on purpose, that is unless I'm wrong in thinking he knows what team won the World Series in 1987."

John lifted an eyebrow in surprise. Dean was competitive and didn't like to lose at anything. He also was a baseball fan. Not knowing who won the Series was not believable. Throwing a game or a match of any sort of highly out of character for him. What was most troubling is why he would do so knowing it meant he got his nails painted as a result.

"Who won the bet?" John asked skeptically.

"Her name is Rhonda Hurley," Mary replied with a sour curl to her lips that drew instant relief and a small grin on John's face. "Apparently she is quote '_volcanic hot'_ so he lost the bet and let her paint his toenails."

"That all?" John wondered.

"It's all he told his mother other than Rhonda is a junior studying political science and dance," she reported tartly. "I suspect there was more to the wager than just nail polish because he made some side comment about the loss being smooth as silk as he smirked. I don't know what that means, and I don't want to know. If you ever find out, don't tell me."

John nodded and chuckled with his first sense of relief in many hours as the sink began filling with water. He nodded appreciatively and found the drying towel flung in his face in reprimand.

"Rhonda Hurley, huh?" he repeated as he continued to nod. "Sounds pretty hot, and she's on his list."

Mary turned from the sink to look at him questioningly. He explained that in the morning, when Dean shuffled to the shower as Mary brought Sam to school (but before John left for the morning), he went through their son's room. As she gaped, he doubted her reaction was due to him invading their son's privacy. He suspected it was because he didn't tell her before doing it because she would want to be in on the investigation. John shrugged without concern.

"Even before he learned about Lucy, something was, his head was someplace other than here," John said. "I was pretty good at understanding Dean before he left for school. Now, it feels like all the rules changed. All the "tells" for his moods and thoughts are different. Something's different with him so I had a look."

Mary chewed her lip and narrowed her eyes then nodded her agreement.

"What did you find?" she asked. "Drugs?"

"That's what I worried about at first," John shook his head. "I mean, he goes off to school by himself. We don't know his friends, he's out of touch so often, and when he returns he's looking worn and thin like he did when he was in the orphanage, but I didn't find anything."

Mary buried her face in her hands then ran them through her hair and took a deep breath of relieve.

"That's good," she nodded.

"No, it's not," John said. "I mean, I found almost nothing. As in no drugs, so that's good, but I basically found a whole truck load of squat otherwise. I checked under the bed, under the mattress, and in his dresser. I don't even know where his clothes are."

"This morning, everything was still in the laundry," she said. "He threw his clothes in the washer when he got home. If all he brought was that bag with clothes, that's probably good news. It means not hiding anything in his room."

"Well, I did find somethings on his nightstand," John revealed. "They weren't hidden, but they seemed was odd. One is a black pouch with a rosary in it."

Mary blinked at that. They might live in a structure that once was a church, but the Winchesters practiced no religion. Neither of the boys ever showed any interest in it. Not that she would dissuade them if they did, but she saw no purpose in it as it. Hell was real, she knew. Heaven was a bit of a fairy tale in her experience with the supernatural.

"He's carrying a crucifix?" she asked. "Dean's found religion?"

"Not unless there's been a miracle that didn't make headlines," John rumbled. "This looks more like it was a gift. There was a note from Father Reardon folded up inside with it. It just said, '_Keep these. They can be useful_. _–Fr. R_.' I'm guessing that since Dean didn't throw them out, the priest must have given them to him as he was leaving to come home. Beside the pouch, I found a notebook. It has a few phone numbers and names in it. I randomly checked out a few of them. They're all girls' names. Near each name were dates and times like a schedule."

Mary blanched and gaped. She wondered in an aghast tone if he was whoring himself out to pay his phone bill. John shook with laughter at her shock and dismay.

"Well, that might wear him out if he caught the clap or something," he chuckled. "But you can put to rest your worry. He's doing is giving private, self-defense lessons to those girls. From what I saw, I think that's how he's paying his bills: Krav Maga for the willing and interested co-ed population. I did get the feeling it's a mix of practicality and pleasure."

"Meaning?" she asked.

"Well," John grinned, "they sound very perky and devoted to their private studies. It's not a stretch to guess he has more than a teacher/pupil relationship with some of his students. I didn't talk to her, but the name Rhonda Hurley is on that list."

"That's all you found?" Mary held her breath.

"Yeah, and that worries me," he admitted. "Now that I know his toenails don't mean he's a cross-dresser struggling to hide it from us, I'm lost on what the hell is bothering on with him. I'm out of covert plans. I say we ask him pointblank."

Mary narrowed her eyes and looked back at the empty, oval table. The two facing seats on the long sides were vacant from their normal occupants. She sighed at the Marine's solution then shook her head.

"He'll make up something or pretend nothing is wrong," Mary sighed with worry. "Dean's harder to read when he feels trapped. God, it was easier cracking the code when we had our own Dean Whisperer eager to help."

John nodded. Sam was an expert on his brother in many ways. In the past, the youngest Winchester was always finely tuned to Dean's moods and whims. He could also goad or guilt Dean into nearly anything, and there was always like an 80 percent chance Dean would let Sam know what he was thinking. Sam's simply act of looking up to his brother and expecting the best of him in nearly all situations worked wonders normally on getting Dean to express and explain himself.

Except, now, Sam really didn't want anything to do with Dean.

"Let's just get through the holidays," John suggested. "If things don't seem to be getting better, we'll sit him down order him to spill whatever he's hiding and is eating at him."

"And when that fails," Mary nodded, "we'll have Bobby talk to him."

She huffed and blew her bangs from her forehead in frustration. _Life_, she thought, _was easier when the worst thing in Dean's life was his not-so-innocent relationship with Lucy Reese_.

_-_**oOoOoOo**_-_

The holiday rolled into town on a blustery morning. Sam, without waiting to be asked, was up early to shoveled the front walk and around the family's second car (a battered old Jeep that his mother usually drove) as the sun was rising. The snow and wind overnight had created a series of drifts. Shoveling wasn't too arduous, but it did leave him puzzled. When he first got outside as the sun rose, it appeared there were already footprints in the snow, half obscured by the driving banks of an earlier storm. They went from the front door to Dean's car, the back of it specifically.

While wondering about that, Sam made quick work of his task. His reasons for getting an early start were twofold. First, it would make it easier on his father when he took the Jeep down the driveway to Bobby's to get the plow truck. Bobby usually took care of clearing their driveway after he did his own, but when he was out of town John repaid the favor by clearing out Bobby's lot and then dealing with the family's driveway.

The next reason for Sam's industriousness was that he didn't want Dean being told to help him. The memory of the cuts, bruises, and possible broken ribs Sam saw on his brother remained fresh in his mind and left him aching vicariously.

Not that he could tell Dean that. In fact, he found he could not talk to Dean at all. He tried twice to speak to him away from their parents on Christmas. Once he knocked on Dean's bedroom door but got no answer. He bravely peeked in to find his brother laying down on his bed, eyes closed, and headphones on with music blaring. It was loud enough that he did not know Sam had entered, and Sam swiftly identified the music as Zeppelin IV when the sounds of "Black Dog" carried easily across the room despite being played through headphones. He closed the door without attempting communication again.

After abandoning that attempt, Sam later made another try to following morning. He attempted to start a casual conversation about nothing important with Dean. He remarked on the weather when Dean finally left his room the next morning. What Sam got was a scoff and an eye roll. Sam wasn't sure what was so difficult in talking about the weather so he asked. The curtness and coldness of Dean's reply hurt.

"Stop it," Dean ordered. "I'm counting the days until they let me leave just like you are. Quit trying to be all polite and civil. I get it. I heard you loud and clear in May: Your life is better without me around. We both know I'm only here because Mom and Dad's insisted I come home for a few days. I'm trying to make this easier by staying as far from you as this little house allows, okay?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, startled to learn Dean considered not come home for Christmas at all.

Dean huffed and considered telling Sam to do some of his beloved research and to focus on psychology. Dean heard a lot about that in a class he was required to take. They spent an entire class on co-dependence and what various forms of trauma did to instill the defect in people. What he and Sam went through as children certainly qualified. Before that, Dean considered home to be wherever Sam was, and he never thought of his relationship with his little brother as abnormal, unhealthy, or damaged. Looking out for his little brother had seemed just being responsible, and doing it felt good—like he had a purpose and value. Protecting Sammy was a worthwhile endeavor because he was a special kid—everyone who met him thought so.

However, the textbooks said was that behaving that way was suffocating and could eventually have devastating effects. Sam's explosion at Dean the previous spring confirmed that theory. The burden of Dean lurking and interfering in his younger brother's life lifted the moment Dean departed home, and his return became a burden for Sam. While Dean felt the loss of his sense of purpose as well as his brother's companionship, it appeared Sam flourished in the new solo arrangement. Dean couldn't begrudge Sam being happy and succeeding; that was what Dean wanted most of all. It had simply never occurred to him that the key to accomplishing that meant removing Dean from the kid's daily life.

His own feelings of loss and rejection aside, Dean told himself severing ties with Sam was truly a silver lining. When he died in a few years, Sam wouldn't suffer much grief, and it wouldn't cause that much commotion in his world.

"You really didn't want to come home?" Sam blinked.

"Want isn't a feeling I can afford these days," Dean muttered. "And this isn't my home anymore."

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked. "What's different now?"

"The fact that you asked those questions is the answer, Sam," he scoffed.

Dean disappeared into the basement after that. Sam hung around near the doorway for a while, stealing glances at the mirrors to see what was going on, but all Dean did was sit on the weight bench. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees while staring at his hands. It was a tense and contemplative pose. He would shake his hand a little once in a while like he was having a conversation with himself and not liking what he heard. His shoulders were rigid and occasionally his jaw would clench. Whatever was unspooling in Dean's head, it seemed to cause him stress and pain.

-**oOoOoOo**-

The musty air of the basement made Dean's skin feel clammy. At least, he thought that was the reason. The sick feelings churning in his stomach, the ones that started in Peoria and never really abated after he left, were increasing. It had surprised him on his first hunt how he was able to hold back any feelings of revulsion at what he saw until after the deed was done. He felt anxious at times during his tracking and trapping endeavors. He even would admit to pangs of fear in the moments before the final confrontations commenced, but once his decision to act, to dispatch the evil sonofabitch he found was made, an eerie sense of calm often flooded his body. It cleared his mind and gave him a surge of confidence. Live, die, neither of those mattered. Do the job—that was his purpose. Every fiber of his being was focused on just finishing what he started.

It was always after, when the scenes would replay in his head, that the shaking or nausea would come. The look and smell of freshly spilled blood only revolted him after he washed it off. He looked into one of his discarded psychology textbooks to see if there was an explanation for that. They relegated it simply to adrenaline and shock. He scoffed as he thought about that. Two little words on a single page were supposed to explain and soothe the colossal fucking mess that was the torture and horror that filled his mind after killing a creature that butchered innocent people. Yet there was a whole fucking chapter dedicated to why he was sick to care about and look after his brother. The two words gave him no peace; the rambling chapter devastated him.

He shook his head and swallowed the sour vapors in this throat and shook from his head the memories of the hemorrhaging man on the floor of that abandoned warehouse in Illinois. It was a fluke that brought Dean there. He was hitchhiking home, snagging rides on big rigs, bouncing from truck stop to truck stop. His plan was to get as far as Sioux City, Iowa, an hour and a half from Sioux Falls. He knew he could grab a bus or call Chuck for a ride. He was in a diner just outside Peoria when he saw the headline on a discarded newspaper discussing the brutal mauling of two young men. The locals were also jawing about it still. They believed there was a wild and rabid animal on the loose in the vicinity of an abandoned warehouse once used by a door manufacturing company.

With his curiosity piqued and a lull in rig traffic at that early hour, Dean paid for his coffee and set out on foot. A few hundred yards from the diner was a rundown building calling itself a tavern. There were half a dozen beat up wrecks in front. He figured anyone who was still at a dive bar before 5 p.m. was not coming out anytime soon and wouldn't miss their piece of crap ride. A few pulled wires later and he had boosted a leprous 1978 Ford Fairmont. She was ugly, but she still had legs. A little cruising and he located the desolate sea of cracked asphalt riddled with invading weeds. Tucked behind rusting dumpsters on the far side of the property, he spotted another car. As Dean got out of his ride, the sounds of a fight in progress pierced what remained of the grimy windows of the structure. He pulled his machete and dove into the breech.

As vampire kills go, it was his easiest. Granted, it was only his second, the other nearly killed him and left him with a mild concussion and cracked sternum. This time, the guy on the ground the vamp was about to shred had taken most of the beating. Dean's tangle with the beast was brief. He got tossed aside twice. The first resulted in sizeable gash in his side. The next broke a rib, but rather than slow him all that did was make him mad. He retrieved his machete from the floor and took a two-handed cut at the things neck that would have made his high school baseball coach proud. The head separated and sailed several feet backward as the spurting body crumpled at his feet.

Despite that sticky and brutal display, that part of the memory was not what was nearly bringing Dean to his knees days later. It was what the man on the floor said, gurgling in his own blood, as he begged for help. Dean could see the guy was a goner, but his mention of loved ones drained the thrill of Dean's kill. He hauled dying man over his shoulder and raced to the hospital he passed on his way through the city. Dean offered the ER attendants a smooth lie about the man (Bill, last name conveniently not given) being his boss and an animal attacking them at their construction site. Whether they believed him or not, Dean did not care. The guy had bite and claw marks. He figured that was enough for the initial triage report. After he guilted a cute, redheaded nurse to get his boss a phone to call his wife as things didn't look good, Dean planned to leave. But the dying man gripped his arm with more strength that Dean suspected he could have retained given his blood loss.

"You're new," he wheezed.

"We all gotta start sometime," Dean quipped.

"Who are you?"

"Jack Hawkins," Dean lied, offering the root of the detestable nickname given to him by a convenience store clerk in Chicago when he was a child.

Back then, the guy called him Dodger, from the Dickens tale "Oliver." Later in life, Dean read the story and thought it fitting Sam was given the nickname Oliver as he was sort of an innocent and loveable orphan in need of protection back then. It was predictable then than Dean got the other name. As Oliver's protector for a while was the disreputable and larcenous, Jack Hawkins (aka The Artful Dodger).

"Jack," the man gasped, "we're supposed to die alone and bloody. We accept it when we start."

"Well, I don't follow rules real well," Dean replied, knowing then that bleeding Bill in front of him had just described Dean's end to perfection. "Now, zip it and save your words for your wife or whoever you're calling in a minute."

"No one gets a goodbye," he continued as his eyes began leaking. "Why me?"

"Your lucky day," Dean shrugged then winced at his choice of words.

"Are you," the man gasped as his words grew thick, "an angel? Psychic said when I'm gone, an angel would watch over my family."

Dean shook his head and pried the man's fingers loose from his from his arm and settled the man's shaking hand on the bed.

"Psychics are all frauds, and I don't think angels are real," he said. "And even if they are, they'd want nothing to do with me."

"Jack, reapers are angels, and they want us all," the man gurgled and offered him a pained grin that was an attempt at a grateful smile as his lids grew heavy. "You broke the rules for me. We never get to say goodbye 'cause we never know when it's our time."

"Guess you're lucky that way, too," Dean nodded then left the ER bay, telling the nurse who looked at him that he needed to move his car and would be back in a minute.

Instead, he left the hospital, ditched the car near a highway underpass, snuck into the rest room at a fill-up station and scrubbed the blood off his hands. He ditched his shirt and field coat and dug his canvas jacket and a hoodie from his bag before using the privacy of the washroom to sew a few stitches into his side with dental floss and a circular upholstery needle he kept in his kit. He downed the Neomycin tablets he found in the dying hunter's bag that he hauled out of the warehouse with the man. Dean had looked at himself, bloody, cut, bruised, disheveled in the hazy cracked mirror over the sink in that dingy bathroom and smiled.

Now, days later, the smile was gone. The man's words screamed at him.

_We never know when it's our time. _

Dean Winchester knew when it would be his time—right down to the very day. It would be a Friday, the second one in June that year. The precise hour was still up for debate. Some of the lore Father Reardon gave him to read said it would be at the stroke of midnight as the 15th became the 16th. Other pieces said it would be just before the 16th became the 17th. Dean didn't care much. It didn't matter to Dean much which it was. He only knew he was going to be alone, as far from people as he could manage, in a place where his body would not be found.

That was, if he managed to die on schedule. Father Reardon's words were also gnawing at him since the diner. Dean's demon contract didn't guaranteed him the full 10 years unscathed (as his current condition proved) and invincible. The priest was worried Dean would punch his clock early. He had taken to scolding Dean about taking independent hunts. The guy just never learned that each time he told Dean not to do something, he was most probably going to absolutely do it. In a life that had a definite and approaching expiration date and in a time when he was forced to stay a student despite his dismal abilities are managing that, the only thing left for Dean were the rebellions he could manifest. Hunting, even when he had no idea what he was doing, burned off his anxiety and feelings of despair and helplessness.

Being home brought those sensations back tenfold. He had come to terms with his parents lying to him about what happened when he was abducted and what they did to find him. He had read through Bobby's journal a dozen times. His mother was a hunter. Her father was a hunter, and his father before that was a hunter. It was in Dean's blood—a gift or a curse, depending on how one looked at it. His father was an unsuspecting civilian who got roped into the life, reluctantly, to find his family. They kept their secrets to protect that family. Dean justified his secrets in the same way. It figured that the only innocent in the family was Sam. It was a role he was destined for, Dean believed.

Coming home was supposed to be his momentary reprieve from what lurked in the shadows as much as it was a break from physics and 18th Century literature lectures. His father was harping on choosing a major; the only solace Dean got from school was knowing that he'd never have to fully pay off his student loans since he'd be dead within 5 years of graduating. That felt a little like screwing someone over who deserved it and often brought an angry smile to his face. His mother was worried he had a chest cold—as she could honestly think the sniffles were something worthy of fear. Sam was the only one being truly honest and not playing a role. He realized the previous year that Dean was dead weight who caused him more problems than he was worth. Although it hurt to remember his brother's words, they also made Dean proud. Telling his big brother to leave him alone and how much better life got as soon as he was gone was brave for a little kid who used to always try and be a peacemaker and keep people around him happy. Little brother, Dean realized with a sad satisfaction, was growing up.

That also made Dean mad and he knew why after that rotten psychology class; it also made him eventually torch his textbook rather than sell it back at the end of the semester for a little pocket change. So with all of those feelings churning in him, he sat in the basement holding his hands tightly to keep from shaking apart as he formulated his plan. Father Reardon warned him to leave his inquiries into Lucy's death alone. Well, in his current mood, that was as good as green lighting the hunt in Dean's mind.

He had taken the first steps the morning he learned of Lucy's death. When he first got home, he stashed all of his gear along with his laundry in the washing machine. Standard operating procedure in the house was that the Winchester boys were responsible for their own laundry. Dean knew no one was going to take care of his stuff so his gun, flask of holy water, Bobby's journal, and his own, were safely hidden for the first 24 hours. It was a choice that proved wise as he spied his father leaving his room the following morning. The guy had gone snooping. Dean decided not to be angry. It was actually expected on some level; Dean just didn't think it would happen so swiftly. He sighed relief that he had not transferred his hunting contraband to his room at that point.

He did so once the house was empty and he managed to actually do his laundry, scrubbing out whatever blood remained in his bad and on his belongings. He then waited until after midnight the following day, once his car was nearby, to transfer everything that would raise eyebrows into the trunk. With his gear stowed and safe, all that remained was to make an educated guess at what stalked the Simpsons property and then make a plan to kill it.

Unfortunately, that left the next step as the one he detested the most: research.

-**oOoOoOo**-

_A/N:_ More to come


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **Upfront apologies, this chapter is kind of dull (but everyone's allowed one dud chapter per story!). The fun begins in the next one. Hang in there, please. :)

**-oOoOoOo-**

Dean had always been a restless sleeper. If pressed, he would admit the problem began the last time he slept in his bed as a child. Some might argue that childhood ends in the teen years, but he considered his done not long before his fifth birthday when a strange noise, his brother's fussing, and a bright light roused him from sleep then whisked him from home before he had the chance to scream for help. Since then, fitfulness dominated his sleeping patterns.

Learning monsters and ghosts were real didn't help either.

He awoke like a gunshot the wee morning after his latest scolding from the Vatican's wayward son, but it wasn't Father Reardon's warnings that drove him from sleep. It was Lucy.

Dean drew a shaky breath in the pitch darkness of his room and ran trembling hands over his face that was damn (he hoped with sweat but grudgingly accepted that tears were also possible). He squinted at his alarm clock to see it was only 3 a.m. He collapsed back into his pillow as the image of Lucy's face blanched white in fear and the terrible sound of her screaming to help him died in his ears. He strained to listen to the other noises in the house, hoping he had not screamed in his dream. In it, he had been running down a staircase with Lucy just a step behind him. There was a doorway in front of them. He knew all he needed to do was to get her outside, beyond the line of salt covering the threshold. As soon as they passed that barrier, she would be safe.

But something grabbed her. He heard her scream then reached for her hand only to have it dissolve in his grasp. An unseen force then flung him out the door and onto the cold, hard ground. The door before him slammed and he could see Lucy flailing in the window, shouting louder than she ever had as a cheerleader. She was calling for Dean, a blood curdling sound of abject terror, to save her. He moved toward the house only to find it seemed to pull away far into the darkness. Despite the sudden and impossible to cross distance, he could still hear Lucy begging him to help.

As he lay in his bed, he pressed his hand to his chest. His heart hammered mercilessly against his rib rudely reminding him that he was something Lucy was not: alive. Dean cursed softly then reached into his nightstand and retrieved the small flashlight he stashed there. Within minutes, he had pried up the loose floorboard in his room. He moved aside the flask a hunter named Walt Thompkins gave him. It was filled with whiskey—Hunter's Helper, as Walt called it. It was good for sterilizing and cleaning wounds and numbing other pains when needed. Dean nudged it to the left and removed the item he sought: a leather bound journal.

The book was in Bobby's methodical block handwriting and had served first as a horror story for Dean and later as a comfort; it contained many secrets of the universe and he turned to it for solace (if not always answers) when the fear of what lived in the shadows jumped him in his quiet and lonely moments—and there were plenty of those in the last two years. In the glow of his small flashlight, he flipped open to the first page that mentioned restless spirits and read the words once again in an effort to memorize what he would need to know if he was right about his suspicion of what killed Lucy.

Across the hall, Sam, too, had woken up. His reasons were based on restlessness as well. He had tossed and turned, unable to sleep, for a long while. When he did nod off, his mind was a whirl of disturbing images of Tommy at a grave site wearing black and telling Sam he was sorry but that he understood because he lost a sibling, too. Sam questioned what he meant only to receive a pointed finger that directed Sam's eyes to a gravestone. The words etched on it sent an electric shock through him:

_Dean Winchester_

_January 24, 1979 — December 31, 1998_

_Beloved Son_

Sam jerked away from the grave marker only to find he had twisted himself in his sheet and nearly fallen to the floor in the tangle as his eyes flashed open. He scrubbed his palm over his face and felt it come away wet. He shivered at that, not from the cold but from an intense pang of loneliness. Whenever he'd had a bad dream as a young child, Dean had always been there with a quick pat on his shoulder and comforting lies about how everything was fine, nothing bad could happen to him, and how brave he thought Sam was not to cry like a baby after a bad dream.

Sam chewed is lip to keep tears from forming in his eyes. He was embarrassed that a dream could make him feel that shaky, and it made him angry toward Dean. Some part of Sam gnawed on the idea that Dean knew his behavior was bothering Sam and because Dean was still smarting from Sam calling him out for his bullshit behavior the previous spring that he was acting this way as some sort of passive aggressive revenge—an immature ploy to make Sam apologize for speaking his mind (something Dean did regularly and almost never apologized for). With a huff of frustration, the younger Winchester punched a dent into his pillow as he untangled his legs from his blanket. He then vowed that, if nothing else, he'd watch his brother like a hawk for the next few days. After all, he reasoned, if their parents weren't acting as if they thought anything was wrong with Dean, then who was Sam to doubt their judgment. Sam reasoned that his own watchfulness would just be to satisfy his curiosity.

**-oOoOoOo-**

Unlike the Sioux Falls University Library, the Sioux Falls Public Library was a quiet place on most days. That only seemed to change when schools were on Christmas break. Parents, out of options for what to do with their young children, flocked to the brick building two blocks from the main thoroughfare in town for the morning and afternoon reading hours. Any older siblings stuck in babysitting duties slouched, sulked, and slumped at tables waiting for the young ones to finish their programs. This left the small staff stretched thin in keeping an eye on what was happening in the stacks from sending teens probing each other's tonsils to find other private places to halting attempts at playing catch with baseballs and footballs down the book aisles.

Sam scowled at the commotion. He was a regular at the library and not just because his mother worked there and gave him rides home so he could skip the extremely long bus ride. He liked the library. The head librarian often asked him to look at the new book catalogs each year to see if any titles interested him as she swore he had read nearly everything they had on the shelves. That morning, he arrived already in an off-kilter mood and found the extra noise in the building more distracting.

He had not intended to go to the library that day, but his plans to spend the day at home secretly keeping an eye on Dean fell apart quickly. His brother was extremely quiet at breakfast, which was odd in itself. Dean being quiet at any time was strange. He liked to drum his fingers on the table, hum to himself, mutter, and talk to the paper's headlines when he bothered to read it or sing along (badly) with the radio if it was one. Like sitting still for long periods, keeping silent was just not something Dean was able to do.

Except that morning.

He was the in the kitchen eating cereal when Sam made it downstairs (another oddity as Dean was never up first if he didn't have somewhere he had to be). He ate his breakfast as if he did not see Sam at all. They never made eye contact. Their parents were both at work so neither were present to jumpstart any conversation. As he finished eating, Dean left the room and went upstairs as though was unaware Sam existed. The younger Winchester was still at the table chewing his lip in worry half an hour later when Dean came downstairs again. He left the house briefly without a coat. Then Sam heard the engine of his Camaro roar to life. Dean returned not long after that shaking the cold from his limbs.

"Are you warming up your car?" Sam asked, feeling a spike of panic in his chest. "Where are you going?"

If Dean was leaving, it might mean he was taking off and not planning to return. If he was not where Sam could see him, he wouldn't know what Dean was doing. It would not be possible to keep an eye on his brother to make sure he was safe and not doing anything foolish (or gathering sufficient intel to completely convince Sam that Dean was just jerking him around to be a dick). As Sam waited for an answer, he looked at Dean with a combination of frustration and worry.

Dean exhaled hotly and worked his jaw. The interruption irritated him. He had hoped that since Sam was ignoring him that would mean he could make a clean get away. He had a job to do and it required some privacy from inquiring minds. He hated this part of the job, the paperwork part as he thought of it. Sure, it was interesting learning about the things that went crunch, rip, and shriek in the night, but this wasn't that kind of learning. This was the digging into the past of people long-gone in order to figure out who the hell they were and find out if any of them were free roaming vapors responsible for killing someone in the present day.

"I'm heading into town," he said vaguely.

"Um, can I get a ride?" Sam asked without a plan for why he would want such a thing if pressed for an answer.

"You don't know where I'm going, and I'm not playing taxi to drop you off at your geeky friend's house," Dean shook his head.

"Then drop me off at the library," Sam offered and was startled as Dean jolted and stared at him. "What? I go to the library all the time."

"Right," Dean shook his head as he accepted the answer. "I probably should have remembered that."

"Is it too far out of your way?"

"Uh, no," Dean relented. "That's actually where I was going."

"You?" Sam blinked and stared at his brother. For as shocked as he was to hear that statement, it was nothing compared to the stunned expression on Dean's face to hear himself say such a thing. What made it even more startling was that he felt certain it wasn't a lie. "You're going to the library?"

"That's what I said," Dean huffed.

"Well, good," Sam nodded vigorously trying to side step a fight. "That's where I want to go, too. I need books to… um, read."

"To read?" Dean scoffed. "What else would you do with a book? French kiss it? Don't answer that. You probably have."

The elder Winchester had shaken his head and told Sam to get to the car in the next five minutes or Dean was leaving without him. They made the journey in silence. They separated as soon as they entered. Sam wasn't sure if he should skulk around and find where Dean was and what brought him to the library. The fact Dean brought him indicated he would not leave without letting Sam know. He was puzzling on that amid the commotion of the daycare like atmosphere of the normally quiet library when he spied his mother talking to Dean and showing him to the archive section where all the old newspapers and town reports were kept.

With his teeth gnawing on his lip and a furrow settling into his brow, Sam made for the card catalog. While big cities and universities had all made a transition to a computerized cataloging system, Sioux Falls was lagging behind. Th index card system still was the only way to find out what was on the shelves. He began tearing through the non-fiction titles looking for one subject: psychology.

Within 15 minutes, he had loaded half a dozen books into a reading cubical and was sifting through their contents on depression, suicide, isolation, and anything else he thought might explain his brother's behavior. What he read made his heart shiver. Eventually, he left his books where they lay and went in search of his mother. He found her in the back office going over a report of some kind involving many tallied numbers.

"Mom," he began quietly. "Can I ask you something?"

"Did you finish your homework?" she asked. He looked blankly back. "Dean told me you asked him to drive you to the library to work on something for school. I didn't know you had a project due. You don't get work like that over Christmas. You have mid-semester exams in two weeks."

"Uh, right," Sam nodded, finding himself wary of lying (or being complicit in a lie) to his mother but finding he could do it with relative ease. "I'm getting ready for a research paper that I'll have to do after exams. I like to get a jump on those. Dean told you about that?"

"Not much," she replied with a plastered smile that told her Dean had offered a few salty opinions on his brother in his rendition. "Are you two getting along today?"

"We haven't really said anything to each other," Sam answered. "He's either been in his room or the basement all the time lately. I don't really see him."

Mary nodded, doing her best not to interfere with her boys and their strained relationship. Her husband was advocating they be given boxing gloves and told to work out whatever was wrong. He believed Sam was big enough and strong enough to stand his ground with Dean; he also believed Dean's years of programming that told him to protect his little brother would keep him from hurting him in any physical match. They just needed to vent some steam and put the problem behind them.

"Well, it was nice that he brought you," she said. "I'll be taking you home."

"Not Dean?"

"You can't expect him to stay in the library all day," Mary shook her head. "It was a miracle you got him to come in at all. I'll give you a ride home later. Are you done your work already?"

"Dean's gone already?"

"Yes," she nodded. "He spent some time looking up something in the old papers, and now he's off to Bobby's to put it to good use."

"Put what to good use?"

"Whatever it was he found in the papers," she explained. "He said was looking up something about a '65 T-bird. Apparently, Chuck showed him a picture from a 4th of July parade from a while ago and there was a former mayor riding in one that was the man's pride and joy until his grandson wrecked it. Maybe Dean's interested in a new car project. If he's going to Bobby's in this weather, he must have spotted a wreck somewhere at the salvage yard."

Sam nodded. He wasn't good at knowing when his mother believed a story or not. Sam never lied to her so he never knew what doubt looked like on her face. Dean was more experienced at it. From skipping school, getting suspended from school, getting busted at parties, and getting in trouble with Chuck during his high school days, he had a lot of opportunity at giving her half-true stories. From the shouting Sam recalled hearing, she believed some but not all of them. From the smirking Dean sometimes did after those blowups, not everything she believed was true. From the occasional extra chores following his groundings, Dean didn't get away with everything he thought he did. If she bought Dean's car story, that didn't make it true. If she doubted it, she wasn't letting Sam know.

That was the trouble with having a brother who was talented in hiding things. Sure, it helped out a lot when you wanted to be the one hiding something and needed his assistance. It sucked when you needed the truth out in the open.

"Mom, I'm kind of worried about something… someone," Sam began and received a nod of encouragement to continue. "I have this… friend and we haven't really talked much and… I mean, he's having a hard time and I know why, but… I don't want to make it worse, but I don't know how to make it better. Like, I'm worried, but I also don't want to make a big deal if it's nothing. I mean, if a person was feeling really awful about life and stuff, the people closest him would already know, wouldn't they? It wouldn't be just me who was worried, right?"

As clandestine approaches go, it was terrible. Sam was cringing inside at what he heard himself say. He sounded more like the confused 10-year-old who returned to his family and was afraid his parents might not like him and his brother enough to keep them than he did like an insightful, straight A student. He was someone that his guidance counselor had just nominated to be a Roosevelt Ambassador, the cadre of students who served as role models and peer counselors for fellow classmen who were new to the school or struggling, but he felt lost and small in this situation. His brother, who he looked to as the strongest and bravest person he knew, was crumbling in front of him, and no one else seemed to see it. Telling his parents was probably wise, but he couldn't bring himself to say the words. To do so would make it all too real, and he worried Dean would never forgive him since it seemed like it wouldn't take much for that to happen.

"Oh, Sam," Mary sighed. "You're worried that your friend is struggling, and you're also worried that if you say something he'll think you tattled on him like a little kid."

"Yes," Sam sighed, relieved his mother understood and apparently knew precisely what he meant. "If I'm wrong he'll get mad—but I'm worried that being quiet isn't a good thing either."

Mary looked up and offered him a frank but caring expression. She reached out her hand and placed it on his.

"I know," she said. "I was thinking the same thing today."

"You were?" Sam blinked and relaxed because it wasn't ratting on his brother if his mother already knew.

"Of course, how could I not?" Mary replied. "I'm worried about him, too. Tommy is your closest friend, and he just lost his sister. That is a terrible thing to go through. He and his family are having a very difficult time. It's okay if you're worried about him. You haven't talked to him for two weeks so it's natural you're worried. That's what good friends do. You look out for each other. I know it's hard to know what to say to him right now, but the truth is there is nothing really you can say so looking at all those psychology books won't give you the answer you're looking for, baby. Look, there are no magic words won't to make him everything better for Tommy. Being sad and angry and little distant is part of the process of grieving sometimes. Right now, the best thing you can do is just let him know that you'll be there for him. Don't push him to be his normal self. Don't pretend everything is fine, but also don't hover around him."

Sam nodded as the sour knot in his stomach returned instantly. He felt terrible that he hadn't thought of Tommy, not much anyway, since learning his sister died. Tommy and Lucy were not close—not the way Dean and Sam had been. Tommy was always jealous of Sam because Dean didn't treat his little brother like a bug to be shooed away or a disease to avoid like the way Lucy did with Tommy. Sam sometimes wondered if the difference was the brother/sister dynamic as opposed to the brother/brother pairing of the Winchesters. He also supposed there was something deeper in his bond to Dean because of how they initially grew up. They were all the other had so they never let anything come between them.

Until Dean left for school.

"Why don't you give Tommy a call this afternoon?" Mary suggested. "You've have been cooped up at home with nothing to do for a few days. He's spent all that time with his family, but it might be good for him to get out of the house and see a friend. Maybe you can go to a movie. He's has his license now, right?"

Sam nodded. Tommy was one of the first kids in the sophomore class to get his license since his birthday was at the start of the school year. Sam had to wait until May for that. He scowled his regret at his lengthy wait. The good news was learning would be a snap. His father promised to teach him to drive as soon as the snows melted, but Sam knew he would surprise. After all, Dean already taught Sam how to drive back when Sam was 13; he took Sam out to the old quarry down the road with one of Bobby's beat up cars. They spent an hour with Sam behind the wheel learning how to drive in a way that would first make sure he aced his test; next, they nearly shredded the tires whipping the car in circles (forward and backward) in a demonstration that would have made a Hollywood stunt driver impressed. Just remembering that afternoon, made Sam smile a little again, but it also formed a pit in his stomach. It had been a long time since he and Dean had done anything like that together, and it was feeling a lot like they'd never have another outing like that again. Sam looked up from his inner misery to see his mother gazing at him expectantly.

"I guess so," Sam nodded. "Are you sure I shouldn't stay home and maybe…"

"I think you and Tommy should go do something," she encouraged. "He could probably use a little bit of normal with people his own age. Besides, you don't want to be stuck at home all vacation long. You'll go stir crazy with no friends to talk to."

That comment made swallowing hard as a lump that began to rise in his throat. His best friend, historically speaking, was not longer speaking to him. Except he wasn't a friend any more. Dean had called their current predicament a divorce when he first got home, and that's what it felt like to Sam. Their bond, their vow, to be there for each other was broken. Who broke faith first was a matter of debate, but Sam felt pretty certain at least 51% of that resided with Dean. It wasn't so much that he went off to school; Sam was proud he did that. It was that once he got there, he cut himself off. That was abandonment in Sam's mind.

What remained was anger and bitterness and no hope for reconciliation on the horizon. Sam knew he was responsible for the beginning of the anger between them. Dean hurt him in May when he barely breezed through the house before making plans to leave again. That made Sam mad and he lashed out at Dean decreeing that he didn't want to be brothers anymore. For one of the first times in Sam's recollection, Dean didn't fight back when challenged. Instead, he took Sam's request to heart. That rubbed Sam even rawer because it indicated to him that Dean didn't care enough to disagree and like he was glad Sam wanted nothing to do with him.

Of course, the more Sam thought about it and looked at it rationally, nothing about how Dean was acting seemed like he enjoyed anything in his life any more. If things were less cold and distant between them, Sam would have asked what was wrong (doing so fairly insistently to get through all of his brother's pointless and stubborn refusals to admit anything) until he go the truth out of Dean.

But now they were just strangers who knew a lot about each other. What was going on with Dean and why he was so torn up both outside and inside was a mystery to Sam that pained him. He was the one person on the planet who used to understand Dean almost better than his brother understood himself.

"Mom, when is Bobby coming home?" he asked abruptly as he thought of the other person who might be able to talk to Dean without making him bolt or blow up.

Their neighbor had an unmistakable and unshakable bond with Dean. Sam was close with Bobby as well, but it was not like the connection he had with Dean. They worked on cars together with Bobby teaching Dean everything his father hadn't yet gotten around to teaching him. He also talked to Dean in a way their father couldn't. Bobby was impartial, and Dean had trusted him before he trusted their parents once he and Sam returned to their family. Bobby was like Dean's Yoda. Their surrogate uncle could speak to Dean in ways that Dean understood and accepted. He didn't fight or argue with Bobby the way he did his parents sometimes. He also told Bobby things that he didn't tell his parents, and sometimes he did it without meaning to simply because Bobby understood Dean the way they understood cars. It seemed to Sam sometimes almost like Bobby knew Dean as if he helped build him from kit. He seemed to know from what Dean did said and what he didn't what precisely was wrong the same way he diagnosed problems with an engine that had a whine it wasn't supposed to have.

"I don't know," she shook her head. "A friend of his was in a bad accident and died. Bobby's helping his family right now."

_But Bobby's our family_, Sam thought as he sighed and nodded his acceptance. _He's Dean's family most of all._

"Oh baby," Mary sighed. "I know it seems like bad things are happening to people all around you. I know it can be hard to be in the middle and see people you care about suffer. Your dad is always telling me that I need to just focus on what's good so I don't get bogged down by all that awfulness, too. Maybe we both need to take his advice. It's okay to feel bad for people who lose someone or who are having a hard time, but we shouldn't forget that our family is doing okay. That's as important as our compassion for others."

Sam nodded. If ever there was a moment when he was going to sic his parents on his brother (for any reason, good or bad), that should have been it. He was worried. He had heard and seen things. There was a crawly feeling under his skin that was more than worry, yet his lips remained sealed. Sam could not help but think of his days at the orphanage in Chicago. There were instances when Sam would be scared of being separated from Dean and losing him. Each time, Dean swore to him that his anxious feelings were nothing to worry about because he was never going to leave Sam and there was no force on the planet that could separate them for long. In those days, Dean always told Sam not to worry; that he would let Sam know if the time arrived when it was right for him to be scared. Although they were not talking and there were plenty of little signs all around, Sam's early programming was still running. Thus far, Dean had not actually or absolutely told him to worry in anyway.

What Sam never considered was whether he was giving his brother too much credit.

_**-**_**oOoOoOo**_**-**_

Evening rolled around and found Dean in the basement again. He had finished his latest round of trying to demolish the heavy weight bag. His side hurt still but the ache was less than it had been days earlier. The bruises, the ones he hid under his T shirt, were slowly fading. The hitch in his breath was less, telling him the cracked rib was healing nicely. His knuckles remained a skinned mess, but he had remembered to wrap them for this latest work out at least. Once it was over, his muscles shook as the sweat dripped from him and slowly dried.

He sat on the weight bench and clenched his hands tightly as if in prayer. It wasn't prayer, of course. Dean didn't believe in any higher benevolent power. He knew about evil. Despite what Reardon claimed, Dean had never seen any evidence of the light side of the Force. Newton's laws from his physics class had no place in what happened in the shadows. He didn't believe in balance—that for every wicked deed there was an equal yet opposite good one or for every source of evil there was a corresponding righteous actor. It took absolute evil to save his mother—the sale of his soul to a demon. Doing so was an act of complete compassion in Dean's book. Reardon had called it the ultimate sacrifice to selfishness. Dean told the good father to fuck off and recommended he find another soldier for his holy war. That was the day Dean took off for his first hunt that involved something other than a demon and needed something other than an exorcism to end. He ended up killing his first monster—a wraith preying upon a nursing home—three days later. It earned him a deep stab wound that went nearly through his arm and several bruised ribs, but at least a few families still had grandma to go visit when he was done.

That's what it all came down to, he told himself. His motivation to hunt monsters did not matter. What mattered was the outcome. People died if someone didn't protect them from the evil in the world. His mother's cancer wasn't that kind of evil, but his Dad and his brother needed her. Dean knew he couldn't face saying goodbye to her, so his reasons for selling his soul might be selfish, but no one could deny the result. Four years later, Mary Winchester was the life's blood of their small family. Because of her, his father still had the love of his life with him. Their partnership allowed him to set up his own business that employed five other guys full time. That was five families with a roof, three squares, and a sense of security. It wasn't the same as saving a family from being a juice box for a thirsty vamp, but it too had merit. Dean also contended that his demon deal opened his eyes to the dark side of life; that led him into hunting. Every life he saved might have been lost if he wasn't there. Unlike other hunters he'd met, Dean wasn't burdened with their biggest obstacle. They were all fighting to stay alive. Dean already knew he was dead.

The few hunters he knew were a salty and snarly group, but they were good people where it mattered most. They did what they did without expectation of payment or thanks. They were outlaws despite their noble calling, and that appealed to Dean. They didn't ask to be called heroes, but deep down they knew that's precisely what they were; they were knights on a noble question.

Some of them even had families, like that poor torn up bastard in Peoria. That was one mistake Dean would not make. He knew on some level he should thank Sam for discarding him the way he did. Sam was a smart kid. He was never much of a card player, but where it counted he knew when to fold his hand and walk away. He'd done that with Dean, choosing not to let his troublesome brother drag him down just as he was beginning to rise in the world. Sam would be someone important someday. He would be a doctor or a judge, someone that made the world a better place. How could he not, Dean reasoned. The world became a better place the day Sam was born. Without him, Dean would never have survived life in the orphanage. He hated Chicago and would have given up quickly, except he had a job. He had to look after his brother. Dean often got credit for taking care of his brother in those days. Dean knew everyone got that wrong. Sam was the one who saved Dean. He knew Sam was important so the little guy saved Dean by needing his help when he was younger.

But Sam no longer needed Dean. While it hurt like hell to realize that, Dean knew it was for the best. He wouldn't be there for Sam for most of his life going forward, and he figured that was okay because he had outlived his usefulness. Sam was turning into Gigantor. He no longer needed his big brought act as a bodyguard. The timing of the demon deal's expiration was perfect, Dean realized. He'd be around just long enough to see Sam graduate from college (if he got invited). Within a month of that, Dean knew he'd be hellhound puppy chow. If he arranged his end of days properly, not only would Sam never know Dean had died he'd also never miss him enough to wonder. Dean planned to be so far removed from the kid's life by then that Sam simply would not care if his brother had been absent for so long. In fact, it might even seem to him that he was ever present at all.

Accepting that as his reality planted seeds of recklessness in Dean. Reardon often worried about those. He was always cautioning Dean to resist those urges, although most of the old priest's objections were kind of selfish because he simply wanted Dean focused on plans—Reardon's own plans. But Dean couldn't ignore all the other bad things when they popped up in front of him. Like he told Reardon on the phone, he'd learned the hunter's creed: You find it; you fix it.

What he'd found was the Simpson house (formerly known as the Decker Farm). Dean still didn't know for certain if there was anything there. His gut told him there was something. Lucy didn't die naturally—even Chuck suspected that. The trick was finding the right time to get over to the house and check it out. Days were out of the question as work crews had apparently returned to the renovation efforts. Nighttime was difficult as Dean's parents would question where he was going. Using Chuck as an excuse was not possible as they knew Chuck normally pulled late night shifts at the Department since he was the low man on the totem.

That left him with only one time and only one way: New Year's Eve and lying.

He truly grinned for the first time in more than a week at that realization. Lying, he reasoned, was what he was actually majoring in at Notre Dame, and he was definitely an honors level student.

**-oOoOoOo-**

At his mother's prompting, Sam reached out to Tommy. His friend was sullen and uninterested in going to the movies, but he did tell Sam that he was going stir crazy cooped up with all of his relatives. As the Reese family lived in one of the upscale, old Victorian homes in town, Tommy didn't have the need to leave for long whenever his mother sent him on an errand. In fact, even runs to the grocery store for small items did not even require him to use his car—a new one in fact that he received as a Christmas present. Sam was a little envious of Tommy's ability to come and go as he pleased with his new wheels, but Sam knew he could benefit from his friend's freedom too.

Offering to help him do just that, Tommy did suggest that he and Sam could hang out on New Year's Eve. He was tired of being around relatives all the time and wanted to see a face that wasn't 30 years older than his own. What they would do precisely was left up in the air beyond Tommy stating he would pick up Sam around 6 that evening. Just as Sam disconnected, the phone rang again instantly.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Can I speak with Dean Winchester?"

The voice was female, perky, and eager. Sam raised his eyebrows and resisted the urge to say "good luck trying." Instead, he carried the portable phone to the basement steps and shouted to his brother. The terse reply was followed by feet treading angrily on the stairs for being interrupted.

"Call for you," Sam said holding out the instrument. "It's a girl."

"I don't know girls," Dean said. "I know women."

"Whatever," Sam thrust the phone at him. "She asked for you."

"Hello?" Dean answered with a puzzled expression.

What he heard in reply was not eager, perky, or female. It was old, cranky, and grumbling.

"I was told there was an incident in Peoria," Reardon's superior voice began.

"Oh, it's you," Dean scoffed as his expression crumbled from puzzled to peeved. He scowled at Sam then descended into the basement again. "Hey, beautiful. Miss me?"

"I take it your family can still hear you," Reardon huffed. "I had Melissa, my cleaning lady make the call. I thought I had a better chance of getting you to take the call if you thought it was one of your nymphs."

"Jealous?" Dean remarked. "What do you want?"

"I am checking on you," the priest said. "Word got back to me that a week ago there was a nest of vampires exterminated, and one Jack Hawkins was in on the final moments. Please tell me there is another one out there."

"You're thinking this world can use two of me?" Dean cracked. "You're a real optimist, and a little crazy. I've said that before, right?"

Reardon sighed hotly and explained to Dean yet again why his solo hunts were unwise. He worried as much about Dean's physical welfare when fighting things he knew so little about as he did about Dean getting caught when he had no real experience getting out of trouble when it would appear multiple, gruesome homicides were all around him. He further pressed Dean on whether he dropped his plans to look into the incident in his hometown.

"That would be a big negative," Dean replied. "I looked at what Bobby had in his library. I'm thinking this is a spirit of some kind, but I won't know for certain until I take a look at the place. I did some research and there hasn't been an obituary for the old man who owned the house. The daughter is still alive. The wife is actually buried on the property, and the son is buried in Arlington. Guess which one I'm thinking is the villain here?"

Reardon sighed and commended him for doing research and determining, using logic rather than his gut, that the wife might be haunting her old home. Reluctantly, Reardon talked him through the process of exhumation and the burning of a body after anointing it with salt. He told Dean he would find it arduous work that would only be worse due to the likely frozen nature of the ground.

"That's why I'm going to take a look first," Dean said. "I don't know that it is the wife. I'll take a peek. They've been doing remodeling to the house so that can wake up things that were asleep, right?"

"It is one possibility," Reardon agreed. "I really think you need to wait for Bobby to return. Now that Mr. Harvelle is at rest, I suspect Bobby will be back any day."

"You knew his friend?" Dean asked. "Was he a priest?"

"Dean, he's the man you brought to the ER," the priest growled.

"Bill?" Dean spoke the man's name softly as the sound of him gurgling in his own blood echoed in his memory.

"His name was William Harvelle," Reardon advised. "He and Bobby were friends for a long time. Even though he was dying, you took a terrible risk giving that man your hunting name because he passed it on to his wife, who then mentioned it to other hunters. She wants to thank the man who got her husband to the hospital. That means several more hunters have heard of you. The few that you've met know your face. You're becoming known."

"I can't help it if I'm adorable," Dean joked but he felt a pang of anxiety in his gut.

"Hunters aren't known for being handsome," Reardon scolded. "The attractive ones tend to be targets for skinwalkers and demons. They like a good looking meat suit for their travels. Are you wearing the anti-possession charm I gave you?"

"No," Dean said and elicited an exclamation from the priest in language he was pretty sure the clergy were not supposed to use. "Calm down. I got it tattooed on me instead. I could lose that friggin' thing you gave me in a fight. Besides it…"

He paused and swallowed as he pulled from beneath his shirt the leather strap that hung around his neck. It held a weird little bronze face. It was a Samarian idol of some sort according to one of Reardon's books. Dean happened across it one day when looking up information on a yellow-eyed demon that Reardon was trying to locate. Dean looked at the talisman. Sam had given it to him for Christmas five years earlier. He said he found it at Bobby's and the junkman said it was just that: junk. He found it in the glove compartment of a wrecked car at his salvage yard and tossed it into a drawer in the house. He'd forgotten completely about it until Sam when rummaging for a pen. The younger Winchester liked the design and gave it to his brother as a present. Dean had put it on and never taken it off since. In that moment, he lifted it over his head.

"I can't have crap hanging around my neck like that," he said sadly. "It gets in the way."

"Well, permanently marking your skin should be effective so long as nothing damages the symbol," Reardon said. "That's very clever solution."

"See, not just a pretty face," Dean replied though his heart wasn't in the remark. "Brains too once in a while."

"If you insist on keeping your secrets, you need to keep a lower profile," Reardon said. "Bobby is not as active as he used to be, but he is far from cut off from hunters."

Dean grunted his acknowledgement. He did not know how extensive or reliable the hunter network was. He was a dabbler only due to his school obligations. Using the fake name was something he initially did on a lark. He hoped he didn't have to come up with a new alternate identity. The name Jack Hawkins was easy to remember in a pinch and sounded so completely average and forgettable that he hoped that was what most would do after hearing it.

"Do yourself a favor and make a wise choice," Reardon counseled. "You are determined to look into the death of your friend. So be it. Just wait until Bobby returns to do that. If you end up in a bind, it's best to have him nearby to help."

Dean made a noncommittal noise in his throat then ended the call. He wasn't sure if he liked Reardon or not. He certainly proved helpful with information and (despite his criticism of Dean's deal) encouraged Dean to learn all he could from the demons he encountered to try and find a way to break free from the payment plan. He also leaned on some of Dean's professors so that he got a little more slack than someone with his at-best mediocre grades would normally merit. Dean didn't know how the man did that, but he reasoned the guy used to battle demons for a living. It stood to reason that tight-assed academics were pushovers for him. But he was also judgment, demanding, and very laser focused on the issue of demons to the exclusion of all other pain and suffering the supernatural brought to the world.

Dean eventually trudged upstairs and went to his room with Sam following swiftly on his heels. He did not get the door closed before a long foot wedged itself inside. Attached to it was the lank leg and body of his brother.

Sam's pulse was racing as he decided to take a page from his brother's book on dealing with situations: barrel straight at it, no solid plan, just get in front of it and wing it. The trick was going to be keeping their voices down. Their parents were downstairs. Any sign of trouble, such as raised angry voices, would bring them to the room to inquire what was going on. Sam had made his peace with that possibility, but he doubted it would as Dean wanted to keep his woes a secret. If Dean was keeping secrets, he would do nothing to draw his parents' attention.

"We need to talk," Sam said aggressively stepping into the room.

"We do?" Dean turned and leveled a warning glare at him.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "I know, Dean. Alright? I know."

The elder brother folded his arms, feeling his muscles still tremble from his workout, and using that ache to keep his face hard. He also didn't trust himself. His nerves were ragged. He was sleep deprived and in various kinds of pain. He'd never hit Sam before in straight anger and didn't want to change that.

"Okay," he shrugged.

Sam was a member of the debate club and the chess club. He did well in both, but those were civilized activities with rules and boundaries. Dean passed easily outlaws, and he was a belligerent son of a bitch. He might have had his share of fights (wins and losses), but he'd never been goaded into one that he wasn't prepared to start all on his own without any provocation. Little brother opened his mouth to speak but found he had no words. His mouth opened and closed a few times like fish out of water as he blinked then fidgeted as he tried to immediately formulate a new plan as his strategy went up in flames.

"Well…," he dithered. "Yeah. So, I know and… you should know that I know."

"Good," Dean nodded confidently. "You saved me the trouble of explaining it to you."

Sam scrunched his brow as fury burst in his chest. This, he told himself, was why Bobby cautioned him never to play cards with Dean. Their surrogate uncle didn't mean it as an insult or criticism so much as a description and friendly (almost proud) warning when he called Dean a natural born bluffer.

Sam was also aggravated because this was not how arguments with Dean normally went. Sam usually confronted his brother with a fact. Dean would either deny it or blow it off as unimportant. Sam would restate the issue. Dean would make fun of Sam's hair, call him a girl, or threaten him with bodily harm, which had absolutely zero likelihood of ever coming to fruition. If there was one thing Sam knew without a doubt about his brother, regardless of how they were treating each other, Dean would never physically harm him on purpose. Bobby once described Dean as a wild animal that had a fearsome snarl; it would loose that terrible sound and scare away most types of danger and the teeth and claws would never come out. Sam was afraid of a few things in the world (clowns were the top of that short list), but Dean was ever one of them.

"Uh, right, well, good, fine," Sam nodded as he grappled for how to proceed. "I just think you should know that what I know is something that I feel like I need to tell Mom and Dad."

"You might be a little bitch, but you're a crappy liar, Sam," Dean shook his head. "If you really thought that you knew something they should know, you'd have told them already. So that tells me, you've got nothing."

"Oh, I don't?" Sam huffed. "How about this?"

He steamed past Dean into his room. He slid open the closet door and reached for the dark bag on the floor. As his fingertips clasped it, his mind registered a problem. The bag was nylon not canvas. It was black not green stained with ominous rust blotches. Dean took the bag from Sam and tuned it inside out to reveal that there were no contents. Sam spun back to the closet and pushed aside the clothing on the hangers. The bag containing the machete was missing as well. He raked his hand onto the upper shelf and felt around for the shotgun only to come away with a glossy magazine showing a well-endowed woman with Asian features posing provocatively on what looked like a Sherman tank painted like a dragon. Sam gaped at it and blinked as Dean lifted it from his hands.

"That's a gift for Chuck," Dean explained and quickly flashed the fleshy feminine centerfold at his brother. "They don't carry this publication at the drug store. I promised him last summer I'd bring him this year's Halloween edition: Lady Dragons of Shanghai. If you want to take a look first, go ahead. Just make sure the pages don't stick together when you bring it back."

Sam blanched then reddened at the comment as Dean snorted callously at him. He turned his back and replaced the magazine in the closet, which was now empty of the contraband Sam was hoping to expose as leverage. The footsteps in the snow out to Dean's car on Christmas morning now made sense.

"I know what you had in there, Dean," Sam said quietly. "I know what you're thinking of doing. I won't let you."

"Won't let me what?" he asked with his back still turned.

"Do anything stupid," Sam replied for lack of a better answer. Fearing his brother might do something to harm himself was one thing; saying it out loud might make it too real.

"Years too late for that," Dean said as he sunk his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and felt the lump of metal from the necklace Sam gave him long ago. "Now, get out of my room."

Sam held his ground for several seconds until Dean's gaze hardened and grew cold. What he might do to enforce his order to depart was not clear. Like hitting Sam in anger, throwing him into the hallway was not precisely likely. A shove was possible, but the intimidating glare and threatening posture were most likely. With a sigh of defeat, Sam relented. He stepped into the hall then turned to speak once more only to see the door pushed closed in his face.

It was not a slam that would rattle the window panes or draw parental attention. It was a swat to the door that mostly closed it, leaving it slightly ajar so Sam could see into the room through the small space. He watched as Dean drew something from his sweatshirt then opened the drawer to his nightstand. Sam caught a glimpse of the item as it dangled on the thin, black, leather strap and dangled for a moment, spinning slowly, before Dean dropped it into the drawer. Sam swallowed hard and felt a shock of tears well up in his eyes. As far as he knew, Dean had not taken off the talisman, a good luck charm Sam called it when he gave it to his brother, since the day he got it.

**-oOoOoOo-**

New Year's Eve arrived crisp and cold as Sam spied the headlights from Tommy's car start down the driveway, he slid his arms into his coat.

"Heading out?" Mary asked.

Sam nodded and stared at her in wonderment. She was wearing a dress and make up as she put on a pair of earrings.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Your father and I are going out," she smiled. "I know. It's like the end of the world. We almost never do this."

"Almost?" Sam repeated. "No, you never do this. Ever. Seriously? You and Dad are going out? Tonight?"

"Well, you're politer than your brother but equally as shocked," she replied with a flat expression.

Sam blinked as a comment from Dean he overheard just after dinner about their father earning breakfast in bed and their mother wearing a French maid's costume suddenly made some sense. Sam shuddered at the image and the gall it took to say such things to an adult. Dean made comments to their parents that he never would dare. He never fully understood why Dean said those things but suspected it had a lot to do with Dean growing up too fast and hanging on to some resentment about it mixed with his delusion of being comedian.

"We're going to the Chamber of Commerce party," she said. "It's good for your father's business. We'll be home just after midnight. I want you home before we get back."

The news suddenly threw a cold, heavy, damper on Sam's plans for an evening of respite from his family's tension and angst.

"You're leaving Dean here alone?" Sam asked with dread.

"Your brother doesn't need a babysitter," his mother replied. "Besides, he's not here. He had plans."

"He does?" Sam inquired. "He's gone? I didn't hear him leave. Where did he go? What's he doing?"

"Chuck invited him to a poker game with some of the off-duty deputies," she explained.

"He did?" Sam questioned. "Tonight?"

His mind flashed to the diner just before Christmas. Chuck sat in the booth opposite Dean and clearly grumbled about having to spend the holidays out of town with an elder aunt in an effort to lock up some money in her will for himself.

"He's spending the evening with a bunch of off-duty cops trying to fleece them for grocery and gas money," Mary explained as she adjusted Sam's scarf and handed him his gloves. "He'll be fine as long as they don't decide to arrest him if he wins all their money. Now, get going. Tommy's been sitting in the driveway for five minutes. I hope you enjoy your movie. Tommy's had a rough couple weeks so getting away from everything to do with his sister should be good for him. Now, I want you home by 11, okay?"

"Alright," Sam nodded as he headed into the night, shivering before he ever felt the cold.

A knot of dread cinched in his chest. He needed to find his brother. His dream of the headstone flashed in his mind once again, the date especially. He might miss his curfew, but he'd face the grounding he got as long as he found Dean. After that, Sam was telling his parents everything he knew and feared regarding his brother even if it made Dean hate him even more. After all, life with Dean alive but hating him was preferable to his brother being dead.

**-oOoOoOo-**

**A/N:** _More to come (and it will be more interesting than this chapter)._


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Sorry for the delay. Bad weather and other work conspired against me. Then the announcement about the end of Supernatural next season hit. I sort of knew it was coming since the discussion at NashCon a few weeks ago, but it still hit me hard. So, to move through my early grief I felt the need to pump out a chapter for those of you still following this series. Hope this chapter keeps you interested.

-oOoOoOo-

The lonely, paint-peeling structure was slowly being swallowed by the night and a snow squall. Sam shivered and turned up the collar of his coat as he waited quietly but anxiously beside the cooling car. Tommy Reese, a lanky blond 16-year-old boy with bony features, stood beside him with tears pooling in his hollow, gray eyes as he took another pull on the bottle clutched in his hand. He sat on the hood of his small car while wearing a haunted expression as he focused on the dwelling where his sister died.

The police tape was long gone. The evidence of many feet trudging to and from the scene where Lucy's body was discovered were obliterated by nearly two weeks of snow and wind. The latest precipitation was coming at a steady enough rate that even Tommy's car was becoming encased at an alarming rate. The house itself stood forgotten and exhausted under a thick blanket of white.

Sam had been close friends with Tommy since his first day of school in Sioux Falls at age 10. He didn't use the term best friend with Tommy. First off, that seemed like something insecure people did, as if tagging someone with a ranking of the power of the friendship gave it more stability. Next, despite his feelings on the superlative ranking nonsense, his closest friend had always been his brother. No one else had ever done for him (realistically could ever do for him) what his older brother had done during their first decade together. Dean sheltered him, protected him, fed him, taught him, played with him, and entertained him. He was mother and father and babysitter, and cohort rolled into one. Recalling that and their years in Chicago made the last seven months of anger seem petty and pointless—particularly with Sam's worry growing with each minute that passed when he wasn't actively looking for his brother that evening.

Still, Tommy too needed support and Sam gave his word he would offer it. Tommy was a good friend, a close confidante in academic matters and had been good company in Dean's absence since the previous summer. Granted, Tommy didn't make Sam laugh the way Dean could, but he also never angered Sam the way Dean could.

Until that evening. Despite the cold, Sam was beginning to burn with anger as he sat beside Tommy on the cold, car hood and shivered beside his friend. His arms hands were tucked tightly under his arms while he huddled in his coat, which seemed a little too short in the arms now leading him to suspect he was outgrowing it like he had so many of his clothes in recent months). Flakes from the sky began to stick and freeze in his hair as his teeth began to chatter. He and Tommy had been at the house for quite a while—since not long after they left Sam's house. In that time, Tommy had said little and only looked in Sam's direction when he offered him a pull from the water bottle he held, which actually contained Vodka. Sam had politely refused and, in between his cold chills, was trying to think of a way to get the car keys from Tommy without resorting to physically yanking them away.

"Uh, maybe we should get going?" Sam urged. "I don't mind missing the previews, but if we wait much longer we'll miss the start of the actual film. Let's get moving, and you know what I was thinking? Maybe you'd let me drive. I can smell your water bottle from over here so I don't think it's a good idea for you to get behind the wheel. Besides, I've got my permit. We always said whoever got a car first would let the other one of us drive it so…."

Tommy grunted his lack of agreement.

"We're not leaving just yet," he replied. "And I think you've figure out that we're not going to the movies, Sam. We were never going to go to the movies."

"I was afraid you'd say that," Sam muttered under his breath then sighed. "Well, I'm not interested in standing here freezing all night. My parents said I could go out to see a movie, and they made it pretty clear I had to be home before 11. What are we supposed to do for the next three hours if we're not hitting the movies?"

"Don't play dumb, Sam," Tommy sniffed. "You know why we're here."

Sam hung his head. He didn't precisely know why they were at the Simpson house, but he had a good guess. His theories, each as likely as the rest, were all wantonly dramatic and pointless. None of them left him feeling good about being there. All left him nearly as worried about Tommy as he was about Dean. The difference between Sam's two growing anxieties was that while he was with his friend, he at least knew what Tommy was doing. With Dean out of sight and in an unknown location, Sam's fears were rising as each quarter hour ticked by. Memories of the gun and machete from Dean's closet and the many injuries on his body left Sam's imagination churning up darker and darker possibilities for how his brother might spend his night. His memory of the graveyard and headstone in his dream also chilled his blood.

"I know what this place is, and I know what happened here," Sam said. "That's kind of why I don't think you should be here. Let's just go. You're just standing here staring at an abandoned house, but there's nothing here for you. Give me your car keys and let me drive us back my house. My parents are away for most of the night. If you don't want to do that, we can… just cruise around town maybe. That might be fun."

Sam heard the doubt in his own voice, but Tommy's condition and his transportation offered Sam opportunities and a tool not usually at his disposal. Finding Dean would be easier with a car. Having Tommy a little blitzed and pliable to suggestion opened more doors for Sam to commence his search. However, Tommy was not on board with the idea.

"You're my best friend, Sam," he shook his head. "You're the only one I trust, and the only one who listens to me. That's why we're not leaving."

"It is?" Sam asked. "I don't follow that. I mean, yeah we're great friends, and friends listen to each other, but you're not saying anything. You're just sitting here as we freeze our butts off and get turned into snowmen. I've had hypothermia before, Tommy. It doesn't improve listening abilities. Trust me."

His friend snorted and nodded as he took another pull on his bottle.

"That's right, you got sick from exposure when you got lost camping back in grade school," he said recalling the incident from four summers earlier. "Your brother carried you out of the woods because you broke your leg." He sniffed as tears puddled in his lids then spilled down his reddened face. "My sister never did anything like that for me. She ran over my foot with Mom's car once when Lucy was learning to park. I didn't break any bones, but it hurt."

Sam sighed and nodded. Tommy's relationship with his sister was never good. Lucy was four years older and acted like those were light-years as she often pretended she simply could not see her brother. Ignoring him was both a power move and pastime for the cheerleading captain as far as Sam ever discerned. He never understood it. Then again, most of his classmates had very different relationships with their siblings than he had with his. He had begun to convince himself that he envied the others. They didn't care what their older siblings were doing. They didn't think it was their business to know about how they were doing in school. They didn't wonder what they were doing when they were not in class. They never wanted to tell their brothers or sisters what they had accomplished. They frequently wanted no conversation or attention from their family at all. They also likely never worried if their siblings had taken to self-harm to cope with childhood trauma while hiding the dangerous and deviant behavior from the rest of the family.

"Well, that was an accident," Sam offered as the silence between them lengthened. "She didn't do it on purpose. She didn't even realize she'd done it, remember? You told me she had the radio so loud she never heard you scream."

Dean heard me whimpering unconsciously 30 yards away while he suffered from a concussion then dragged himself through the underbrush of the tangled forest to find me, Sam thought to himself. Dad said hearing me crying in pain actually hurt Dean more than his own injuries. If he'd ever run over my toe, he'd never have laughed it off like Lucy did to Tommy.

"Do you think she screamed?" Tommy asked listlessly, snapping Sam from his memory wanderings. "When she died, do you think she screamed when she was falling?"

The question struck Sam dumb. He never gave much of a thought to what might have happened to Lucy. He thought her death odd, but the police appeared unconcerned by it and had not investigated it for long. She was already cremated and in an urn somewhere. That thought jarred Sam. It was one thing to know about cremation; it was something else entirely to think that a person he knew (though not well) was reduced to ashes and could fit in something as small as a flower vase when just two weeks earlier, she was a living breathing person apt to roll through stop signs in her fiancé's new Volvo and bring a screeching halt to traffic.

Sam wasn't overly familiar with death. He'd never owned a pet. He'd never known his grandparents as both sets passed long before he was born. Both of his parents were still alive. None of his classmates had ever perished of illness or accidents. Bobby had missed Christmas that year due to one of his friend's dying in another state, but Sam's life was relatively protected from facing that awful eventuality of life. Death of a loved one never crossed him mind.

Or hadn't until he discovered Dean's secrets. Now, he worried he would have to face that eventuality sooner rather than later.

It wasn't so much that Sam worried Dean would kill himself. He was more worried his brother would harm himself badly enough that it might cause something fatal (yet unintentional) to happen. Dean was always strong and determined. When his spleen ruptured at age 14, he managed to walk with his father while holding a conversation before collapsing on the floor of Bobby's kitchen when the blood loss became severe. As Tommy had recalled, Dean carried his injured brother out of the woods—hiking nearly five miles over uncertain terrain—with a concussion and various contusions. Dean Winchester was not someone easy to knock down and keep down.

Yet what Sam saw in his brother during the holidays was something he never expected to see: frailty.

Dean looked like he was ready to take a knee and stay down. There was a hollowness in his expressions and a lack of fight in his eyes even when he argued with Sam. The younger brother swallowed as his mind instantly went to the memory of Dean taking off the necklace Sam gave him years earlier. It was such a minor act, something that could very well have no significance, yet it pained Sam to see it the same way seeing the cuts and bruises on Dean had pained him. Sam reached unconsciously to his own chest and felt the small, metallic lump pressing on his breastbone where the talisman now rested. He retrieved it from Dean's room partly hoping to keep it from being tossed in the trash the next time he pissed off Dean and partly hoping Dean would notice it was missing and show some concern about it. Thus far, his brother did not appear to notice it was missing or had and simply didn't care. Both possibilities pained Sam.

"Tommy, it's cold and if we're not going to the movies, then we're at least getting out of the snow," Sam said. "I'm your friend and you trust me so maybe you should trust me and follow my lead. Let's leave this place. There's nothing here to see."

Tommy wiped his leaking eyes then took a healthy swig the bottle and started trudging through the shin-deep snow toward the house. Sam gasped then ran his hands through his hair before sighing and following at a quickened pace.

"I have to look," Tommy said as he reached the porch steps. "It makes no sense how she died and… She wants to me look."

"Who does?"

"Lucy," Tommy said listlessly.

"Lucy wants you to look?" Sam blinked as he grabbed his friend's arm to halt him. "Okay, that's obviously the vodka talking. I can't believe I let you do this. So, I'm ending it. We're going. We shouldn't even be here. We're trespassing."

"We're in high school," Tommy answered brusquely and shook free of Sam's grasp and pulled a small flashlight from his jacket pocket. "Teenagers supposed to do crap like this."

"Not when they're on the honor roll," Sam argued through clenched teeth. "You're second tenor in the glee club not captain of the football team. I'm the Vice President of the Latin Club."

He earned himself a sour, hurt-filled look at that observation. Tommy always took hearing what he was not as a slight rather than a factual assessment. Sam couldn't understand the competition Tommy created for himself with his older sister. Lucy had been popular and a varsity cheerleader. She was homecoming queen or prom queen—something like that. Sam saw no value in either accomplishment—especially considering that he knew the girl ditched her actual boyfriends to fool around with his brother at the quarry because she had the hots for him but didn't want to be seen in public with him for fear of it tainting her pure as apple pie image in town.

Tommy was not an athlete. He was an acne-prone kid who walked with his head down often because he frequently had a fantasy book in his hands. He liked the ideas of hobbits, and fairies, and elves more than he cared about varsity letters or how many people know him in a crowd. Yet he also felt he lived in his sister's shadow and could never quite get out of it. He tried to measure up to how wonderful people (usually those who didn't know her well) said Lucy Reese was.

Sam had it easier. Dean didn't leave an impression most people wanted to recall. They either paid him no attention or were intimidated by him. Two minutes of observing Sam Winchester usually settled their minds that they were very different boys. So, although Sam was at the top of his class and did not play a sport, he was well-liked by most teachers, nearly all of his classmates and quite a few of the upper classmen. Sam's unconventional popularity was a sore spot with Tommy. It got worse in the fall when Sam had been invited to a few parties at which most sophomores—not even those with siblings throwing the bashes—were allowed. Sam didn't go to them to avoid trouble when they would inevitably be broken up by police, but he also didn't want to leave his best friend home alone and smarting from being excluded.

Tommy paused in his trek to the house and glared at his friend.

"Aren't you coming?" he demanded. "Or are you too cool to hang out with me now?" Sam held his ground and earned a scoff in reply. "Fine. Then take a walk. I don't need you here. Tonight, I'll breaking the jock vs. geek rules all by myself. I don't need your help or your company."

He made it to the porch and rattled the doorknob as he found it locked. A second later, the sound of shattering glass filled the night followed by a hoot of victory before Tommy disappeared into the house. With a hammering heart, Sam approached the threshold. He peeked inside to see a weak beam of light bounce along the interior walls as Tommy tromped through the shadowy space.

"Tommy," Sam whispered for reasons he couldn't fathom. "This is going too far. Get back out here. Now."

"Do you hear that?" his friend asked from the interior shadows. "Sam, I heard my name."

Sam blinked and strained his ears to hear whatever noise drew his friend's attention but found only the soft moan in the wind sucking at the open doorway of the empty house.

"No, you didn't," he replied only to be met by the sound of Tommy's feet hammering on stair treads and distancing themselves from the door. "You didn't hear anything. There's no one here but us. Tommy? Tommy?"

There was no reply.

-oOoOoOo-

The business owners of Sioux Falls were a sedate crowd even on New Year's Eve. That evening, nearly every small business owner in town (and a few of the larger ones) were gathered to have rubbery chicken, cold potatoes, and hand out business cards. John and Mary were in a gaggle guests from the sector of town where John's garage was considered one of the reasons for that region's revitalization. The auto parts store and lunch counter around the corner from him were doing double the business since he opened his doors and began siphoning off clients from other repair shops.

The man many of them knew as James Smith entered dimly lit room at the University of Sioux Falls conference center without anyone actually seeing him pass through the door. He was a short man with a big ego and intense eyes that sifted the crowd and found his former tenants as though they were decked out in flashing lights.

"Well, looky who's here," Smith, the guise of the archangel Gabriel, said as he strutted toward them. "It's my favorite former tenants."

He held out a confident hand to pump John's reluctantly offered palm then offered Mary a loud kiss in the cheek.

"Mr. Smith," she said, taking the lead in all discussions with their former landlord as she usually did. Both her husband and her oldest son were always wary and cold toward the man for reasons she could not fathom nor could they explain. "This is a surprise. I haven't seen you in years."

"Well, investments and whatnot called me away from this little frostbitten paradise," he replied with a wide grin. "I hear from folks that you're both doing well. You're still in the all clear?"

He asked her the question and raised an eyebrow. When last he saw her, she was at death's door with a reaper impatiently filing her nails waiting for Mary to exhale her last breath as cancer ravaged her body. Her recovery was considered miraculous across the board by doctors, family members, and angelic purveyors of fate. With her around to keep her kids on the straight and narrow (and as far from the supernatural as Momma bear's considerable deceptive skill could manage), Gabriel had bid the Winchester clan adieu. He sold them the house they rented from him and beat his wings to Monte Carlo where he spent his days and nights with exotic porn stars—the curvy and eager kind with both real and fake breasts—and didn't give the Winchesters a second thought.

Until that morning.

As the New Year dawned for him in Europe, several of his chatty Cathy pals from the demi-god gangs were starting to worry. They were hearing rumblings both low and high about prophesies coming to fruition and a prize fight that was perhaps back on the schedule. Verifying the rumors was not easily done unless he wanted to out himself among his clueless colleagues—or worse, let his family know where to find him. His only option was to check in with the hunter who knew him and the family that didn't. His chit-chat with the hunter was on hold as Bobby was surrounded by other hunters anytime Gabriel took a peek on the guy in the last few hours. That left just the unsuspecting retired hunters as intel.

"What brings you back to town?" Mary asked then griped her husband's hand as John began shifting as though he was preparing to walk away.

"Uh, friends," Gabriel answered. "Was in the neighborhood in between celebrations and thought I'd have a look-see at everyone. Holidays all jolly and merry, Mary?"

He winked at her then grinned at her spouse, who looked ready to punch him or walk away without even a word of farewell. His belligerence usually made Gabriel smile but there was too much tension in the man's brow for his ire to be simple irritation with a man flirting with his wife. Gabriel had seen grave worry on John Winchester's face many times over the years; each time, the root of it was one thing: his children. While he was not sporting the deepest or sourest scowl the angel had ever seen, there was nearly nothing festive in his postures or expression.

"As much as possible with two moody teenagers in the house," she replied.

"Ah, so the weather's got frick and frack on the verge of their own version of Fight Club, eh?" he asked.

"What club?" John wondered.

"That movie's not out yet, I guess," Gabriel shrugged. "Wow. Is my face red? I should have gone with a Keyser Soze reference. Oh well. Tyler Durden can beat me ugly if I've given away too much, right?"

John nodded and growled lowly in his throat the way he did most of the time when the former landlord spoke. There was just something that radiated off the man that bothered John. He attributed it originally to little man's disease but there was more to it than just the obnoxious strut and idle prattle. It was an arrogance that seemed to have no foundation and yet also had no off button.

"Well, Dean's actually giving self-defense lessons to a few girls he knows at college," Mary offered politely as she cut a warning glare at her spouse. "He's just about halfway done now."

"Whoa, Dean and college?" he shook his head.

"He's a sophomore at Notre Dame University," John said proudly if a little aggressively.

He felt the fighter in him rise anytime someone showed surprise at Dean's accomplishment. Granted, the boy was not obvious academic material, but he was not intellectual slouch. Bobby's description of a diamond in the rough fit Dean to perfection in his father's opinion. John might have high expectations of his boys, but no one else was allowed to judge them—and certainly no was permitted to judge them unfairly.

"Notre Dame?" Gabriel repeated as he felt his face grow pale. "That is… unexpected.. Wow. That definitely was not in the script."

"He surprised us, too," Mary added as she felt her husband both puff out his chest in pride and grow tense with irritation at her side. "Which isn't to say he isn't keeping up that teenage frustration for us. He neglected to tell us he declared a major so we've been on his case a bit during school break, but John called the school today and found it all is well. Kids and their pointless secrets, I guess."

"I'll say," the angel nodded as a frozen, pained smile graced his lips. "What's he studying? Not considering the priesthood is he?"

He asked and held his breath that he wouldn't hear demonology or some other obscure field that signaled the jig was up for the apocalypse avoidance plans.

"Mechanical engineering," John answered. "He's always liked machines with moving parts. I spoke to one of his professors who said for one project Dean created a modification for a gun trigger that caught the interest of Colt Arms Company. It's not a revolutionary design, but it could lead to a job down the road."

"Dean-O and a Colt pistol?" Gabriel nodded as his mind began to whirl and warp with a million questions and twice as many worries. "Yeah, I have no trouble picturing that. Um, so what of little Sammy? What's he up to these days?"

Discussion about a sudden growth spurt, the Latin Club, and the chess championships followed. The angel nodded, finding some comfort in learning Sam was a well-adjusted (if overly tall) young man with solid grades and an even stronger bond with his family. There was no mention of teenage tantrums or threats to run away. He wasn't trying to strike out on his own to prove anything or show how different he was from his family. The arrogant edge that the demon blood would have left in him was not present, which gave the archangel some sense of relief.

But Dean's story line was all wrong, and that put the fear of Dad into Gabriel.

He knew the problem with altering timelines and changing anyone's fate was the domino effect. Other pieces got knocked over sometimes and the ripple effect could take over. The price to be paid for Gabriel's shifting of Winchester fortunes was the loss of life of all those individuals the hunters saved. They were not necessarily all going to be lost; it was just not a guarantee someone else wouldn't step in to do it. Big picture: Gabriel knew he could live with it. Less than 100 people (ignoring those who would not be born because of the deaths) was a small price to pay to keep the scores of people who would die with the advent of the apocalypse (and all the dirty tricks that proceeded it) from punching their tickets.

Although changing one family's destiny would have a great impact, it did not also mean that some other unforeseen twists of fate wouldn't come around and trample all over Gabriel's hard work. His grand plan was off the rails and where it was going, he had no idea. As one whose job it was to usher in the fate of humans that was more than a little scary.

"Well," he said as he realized his long night of fact-finding was far from over, "you two crazy kids enjoy yourselves. Happy New Year to you, and give my best to frick and frack. If I'm in town again soon, I'll swing by the old place for visit. You guys were always my best tenants."

He nodded and slipped into the crowd, vanishing not 20 feet from the couple without anyone notice.

-oOoOoOo-

Sam hesitated on the threshold. Despite the cold, sweat prickled along his neck as his heart raced and all his muscles tightened. So far, all he had done was trespass on the exterior property. Tommy had done some breaking and entering—vandalism and destruction of property too considering the shattered windowpane in the door (and considering that it was actual glass meant it might be antique so that upped the damage value)—but nothing do thus far was so illegal it was irrecoverable if they got caught. Sam's pulse raced and his heart thumped loudly in his ears as he struggled with what he should do. His conscience, the little Jiminy Cricket he rarely needed to consult because he never found himself in these situations, merely shrugged in confusion then posed a question: What would Dean do?

The answer was as marbled as his brother's personality. Dean, for all of his obnoxious desire to appear like a loner and stick to his pigheadedness to always do things his way, was a lot less of a rebel than most people suspected. He had a courageous nature born from a childhood spent in survival mode, but his own well-being was never his top priority. Whoever it was that needed protecting always got Dean's attention—whether they wanted it or not. So, whereas Dean might be someone who was capable of breaking into a house, he was also the guy who wouldn't let someone, who evidently needed a keeper for the night, do something stupid and get in trouble needlessly.

That realization settled matters for Sam. He took a deep breath and entered the house as a plan of action unfolded in his head. Dean always told him to have a plan. He always taught Sam that no matter how unexpected the situation, having a basic plan with a definite end goal would help him make snap decisions if push ever shoved. The goal was simple: Leave with Tommy immediately. The plan to do that: March upstairs, locate him, drag him out of the house, and toss his mildly inebriated ass into the car.

Sam realized fairly swiftly that making a plan was easy. Executing it was the hard part. Several times in his life Sam had marveled (after the fact) at his brother's exceptional clear-headedness when presented with dire situations. Now, facing his first real action-needed challenge left Sam feeling both anxious with nerves and giddy with adrenaline. For all the fear he felt, there was also something a little intoxicating about having no idea what would happen next but feeling confidence deep in his bones that he could face it. That unexpected high and sense of purpose it gave him was alluring.

As he made his way into the house, he noted immediately that it was somehow colder inside than outside and much darker. The air smelled stale and despite the deep chill seemed musty. Sam stumbled over what felt like electrical cords snaking across the floor. He made it to a wall and groped for a light switch. Upon finding one, he offered a quick wish to the shadows that it would work. Instantly, a sad, weak bulb high in the ceiling of a stairwell flickered and prompted a victorious grin on Sam's chilly face. The naked bulb cast barely enough light to reach the stair treads. Sam stood at the foot of the flight and gazed upward at the shrouded recesses of the home.

"Tommy, get down here," Sam said sternly into the nothingness. "We're leaving."

"She's here," his friend's voice sounded thin and mesmerized from the somewhere in upper regions of the house. "I keep dreaming of her. Every night she's is in my dreams, and she's in this house. She's yelling for me to come help her. I've never stepped foot in this place until now, but I swear I've been here before. Lucy's here, Sam. I heard her. She said my name."

"No, she didn't," Sam replied as he hurried up the stairs, hearing them creak eerily under his feet. "That was just a dream you had. It wasn't real. I know that this has been hard for you, but being here isn't going to change anything. There's nothing for you to find."

The scoff Tommy loosed hissed through the oppressive cold of the empty house. Sam reached the second floor and saw the anemic beam of his friend's flashlight at the far end of the hall. It drew Sam like a moth while the walls loomed black all around him and seemed to press and lean inward as though compressing the space and stealing the air.

The air grew colder still upstairs, yet the knot that formed in Sam's stomach told him there was more to his sudden chills than the frigid temperature. Behind him, the lone bulb in the stairway began to flicker. The hairs on his neck stood on end, and he felt as if someone was staring at him. He turned around suddenly with a fist cocked and ready to fly but found the hall empty. Slowly, the light dimmed and threatened to extinguish altogether. With his heart pounding mercilessly, he turned back to the room at the end of the hall where Tommy's light was also dying.

"Give me your keys and let's go," Sam ordered, knowing he sounded abrasive but hoping it would jar his friend back to his senses. "I'm sorry about Lucy, but she's gone. She's not here. She's not calling to you. She's also not coming back. You've got to let her go."

He stepped into the narrow bedroom to find Tommy staring at the ceiling with a quizzical expression. He turned his head slowly at Sam. His friend's eyes were glazed and unfocused as he tilted his head sideways then turned his dying flashlight on Sam, forcing him to hold up a hand to shield his eyes and take a step backward.

"No, I don't," Tommy answered. "We're family. I won't just give up on her. You'll never understand that. You've never loved your family like I loved mine. We need each other."

Sam scoffed and refrained from reminding his friend how often in the six years they'd been friends that Tommy had howled how much he hated his sister. He also held back on refreshing Tommy's memory about the number of times Lucy harassed, ignored, and outright sabotaged her brother's attempts to just be a kid. Against parental orders, she often refused to take Tommy to see friends, made him walk home from school so that she could spend time with friends rather than play taxi. She forbid him to have friends at their house when she was in-charge. She stole the money he earned mowing lawns. There were a few dozen other crappy things she did that convinced Sam that Lucy was the epitome of a popular high school snob, a pretty girl who was beloved by many simply because she was popular but was also reviled by plenty of others because deep down she was pretty much what Chuck told Dean: a shallow, mean person at her core.

"What you need is to go home," Sam coaxed, taking a less harsh track. "I'll drive you. Come on. You'll feel better in the morning."

"I feel better already," Tommy said in a hollow, calm voice. "I've got everything I need now."

"No, what you need is to follow me so we can leave and then you need to sleep this off," Sam said. "Just give me your keys. I mean it. I'm leaving with or without you, but one this is certain, if I leave without you you're not keeping your car keys. I won't take your car if you want to stay; I'll walk home, but I'm sure as hell not leaving you hear with keys when you're in no condition to drive. I mean it, Tommy. I will leave you here. Look, I know things are rough for you, but you're not the only one who's having a tough time with family right now."

Tommy's laugh was abrasive as he crossed the room and kept the dimming light pointed at Sam's face. He clucked his tongue in a scolding, disappointed parental fashion.

"Such an arrogant boy," Tommy said. "He really despises the way you act like you always know best, don't you? In my day, we showed people more respect. Well, here's some news for you. You've got no business here, and you're in no position to tell me how I should feel about my family—especially when you don't care about family at all. After all, you were glad to be rid of your brother. You were glad that he left and angry that he came back. You'd probably be happier if he was dead."

"What?" Sam barked and batted the light away from his eyes. "That's not true, and what do you mean 'in my day'? Are you on something more than whatever you were drinking?"

"So judgmental," Tommy's eerie voice continued to talk down to Sam. "I'm not sure why he was friends with you, but I can understand why he came to me. He's safe here. He'll be cared for and appreciated, and you won't be able to bother him anymore."

"Bother who?" Sam asked. "Tommy, you're talking crazy. What's wrong with you?"

As he batted the light down, it flashed briefly over Tommy's face and Sam gasped as what he saw. Tommy's eyes were completely white, like they were rolled back in his head. His skin was a ghostly pale grayish color. Sam reached toward his shoulder and found himself slammed into the wall with Tommy's bony arm pressing hard against his throat with more strength than Sam ever suspected existed in his skinny friend's body. Sam struggled to unpin himself only to feel his feet astonishingly leave the floor as Tommy lifted him and pressed him up the wall.

Sam gasped and kicked, feeling his head swim as each breath was harder and harder to pull in. All the while, he heard Tommy rambling accusations about Sam's hatred of family and the hardness of his heart, but not all of it made sense. Tommy muttered names Sam did not know and talked of people Sam never heard of before. Sam rejected the rambling as some sort of mental fit brought on by a combination of his friend's stress, whatever chemicals were making the rounds in his body, and Sam's own mild asphyxia. To think otherwise would be to court craziness.

Aside from the insanity of his slighter built and weaker friend being able to lift Sam cleanly from the floor and shove him half way up the wall like he weight no more than a pound, the things Tommy said were simple lunacy, although the words did sting for the accusations about Sam's regard for his family were patently untrue. It also bothered Sam (as much as his friend's sudden reverence for a sister who spent time torturing Tommy with her coldness and snobbery and harassing him with her incessant orders and edicts to assuage her personal whims) that Tommy sounded so assured in his accusations about his friend. Sam would have argued his position if he'd had enough breath in his lungs to get out a full sentence.

"Tommy, please," Sam rasped as his vision grew blurry and his face and limbs felt tingly.

The pressure on his throat suddenly released and Sam slid to the floor. His knees buckled instantly and he choked as he gasped for a full breath.

"Sam?" Tommy's more familiar voice came out in a fearful wail.

"I'm here," Sam coughed and reached out a hand to offer support only to feel his fingers twist backward and his arm bent viciously behind him. Suddenly, Tommy's hot, tainted breath filled his ears.

"You don't belong here, boy," Tommy snarled in the hollow voice again. "You're not one of us. You don't know what it feels like to lose someone you love. Hell, you don't even care if anyone dies. Your friend lost his sister, and you want to go to the movies. You hate your own brother so much you wish he never came home again. Maybe you're the one who shouldn't go home again."

"What?" Sam shook his head as he yank his arm free and clawed the wall in order to stand.

"All you've done since last summer is bitch about how glad you are your brother left and how you didn't care if he ever came back," Tommy howled. "Well, your friend is sick of hearing about it. He's a good boy. He understands the importance of family. He came here for his sister, didn't he? She was like Evelyn. My Evelyn was all I had left! Then she was gone. Family isn't supposed to leave like that, not when you need them."

His voice had dropped in pitch despite the strain from his yelling.

"Who is Evelyn?" Sam asked, confused by the shift in the discussion. "Tommy, you're drunk and not thinking clearly. You're upset about what happened to your sister. I understand that, but it'll get better in time. Don't you remember what you told me after Lucy moved in with her fiancé? You said you never saw her or spoke to her anymore. You were happy about that. You were glad to have her out of your family's house."

The voice that answered drew out like a blade and had a metallic edge to it as a putrid scent wafted into the room. Although the words came from Tommy's mouth, Sam was certain they were not his.

"This is my family's house," he said. "You don't belong here."

What happened next remained a point of confusion. One moment, Sam was pressed up against the wall in the empty bedroom at the end of the hall. The next, he was sailing through the air and tumbling across the hallway floor. He rolled to a painful stop at the opposite end, just inside a small room that appeared to be in the middle of a renovation to make it a bathroom. There were plumbing fixtures in the walls but the space was essentially empty except for a claw-footed tub that appeared too large for the space. Even a glance at the door made it seem likely the room was built around the piece rather than it having been moved in. Sam rubbed the lump forming at the back of his head and felt for the knots in his side where he tumbled as he picked himself off the saw-dust strew floor. As he reached for the doorknob, the portal slammed shut. In the same instant, an unseen force from the blackness lifted Sam from his feet and hurled him into the wall. His head collided with the plaster surface, and his eyes closed as he sunk to the floor in a boneless heap.

-oOoOoOo-

A/N: More to come.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Sorry about the delay in posting. The site keeps giving me upload issues (it won't pull the chapter I upload to add the new chapter). The work around is better than nothing, but it messes up the paragraph spacing (sorry about that, too). Hope you enjoy it anyway.

**-oOoOoOo-**

The cold bit deeply into Dean's fingers and neck as he crept out of the woods bordering the Simpson property. A mile and a half away, across the sloping thicket, was the back property line of the auto salvage yard owned by Bobby Singer. Although Bobby was still on the road, Dean knew the man would not have an issue with Dean parking his car there. It had been tucked away in a cozy garage since the previous summer. Leaving her there for a couple hours once again would not raise any questions—so long as no one saw the car parked behind the garage where Dean spent two years restoring the wreck during high school. Granted, if Bobby knew why Dean strategically placed his car at the salvage yard that surely would prompt an awkward discussion.

Still, leaving Bobby in the dark about Dean's non-paying job was as much a necessity as keeping his car away from Poly Decker Road while he explored the farmhouse. The car was an easily identified vehicle in Sioux Falls for one thing. It was a classic muscle car with an engine that emitted a wonderfully throaty growl that many in town could identify with ease. Not that there was going to be anyone around when Dean took a peek at the abandoned property, but Father Reardon's constant pleas for caution had sunk into his brain. Getting caught hunting while far from home presented enough challenges, but his anonymity in strange places offered Dean many more solutions to those problems. Getting nailed while at home would be bad on so many levels.

Not that he expected to get caught. There was no one around as he trudged out of the thick wall of trees. The snow was swirling in angry eddies and obscured the moon. Darkness was heavy and deep. His flashlight barely carved a few feet in front of him. As the wind picked up and moaned, he chanced a look behind him and was gratified to see his tracks being erased with the gusts. It boded well for keeping his arrival (and his departure) hidden.

Dean approached the house with his canvas rucksack weighting heavily on his shoulder. Most of the bruises and aches that he received on his way home from Indiana were faded to the point of being merely a nuisance, but the cold was tearing through him. From the resistance of the snow beneath his feet, he suspected the frost was driven down nearly a foot into the ground. If there was a body on the property, finding the grave would be unlikely until spring arrived; exhuming it would be impossible without a backhoe.

And a body was what he figured he would need to find in order to put this hunt to rest.

His research at the library, his conversation with Father Reardon, consultations with Bobby's journal, and a peek at a few of the books in the man's library (coupled with what he learned from picking Chuck's brain days earlier) let Dean know Lucy was almost definitely killed by a vengeful spirit. A ghost lurked within the walls of the farmhouse. What set it off and what tethered it to the property was a mystery. The recent renovations seemed a likely source for waking the dead, but without knowing the ghost's identity, finding out the rest would be a lot of guess work.

Still, Dean's gut told him the answer was not something convoluted. One thing he learned in his life, and that was later reaffirmed from hunting, was that people were basically simple and most problems fell into that category as well. People had needs. They needed money; they needed shelter; they needed love. Take any one of those things away, and life could fall apart. Researching the Simpson family told Dean that old man Simpson, the last resident, was fairly well off in his lifetime and had a home he took pride in. What he lacked was family. The man's son died in a war; cancer took his wife; months later, his daughter abandoned him. That, Dean felt certain, was the man's undoing. He did not think Simpson ever went to find his daughter. The absence of evidence of that was fairly glaring to Dean. According to the house deed registered at the sale of the property the previous fall, the now-elderly daughter had to sign court documents claiming the house as her own after getting the state to acknowledge her as the rightful owner. That meant she had no death certificate for her father. Therefore, she did not know when or where he died. That put a pin in the idea the old man left South Dakota and spent his final years with his daughter in California.

Dean reasoned the truth was as simple as it was sad. He died on his property. Alone. Unnoticed. Never grieved.

That, Dean suspected, was enough to turn a family man into a pissed off ghost.

He hoped a quick tour through the house would turn up a box of keepsakes: jewelry, a lock of hair, a family heirloom of some sort that would keep the man tethered. Dean would also keep a look out for something infinitely stronger for holding the man to the earth: his bones. He accepted it was unlikely he would locate the man's skeleton. Contractors had begun cleaning out and gutting the house in November. Finding a skull in the pantry or stashed in the basement atop a pile of ribs and other bones surely would have resulted in the sheriff being summoned. The fact that never happened pretty much guaranteed the body was not stuffed in a closet.

Thoughts on what he might find roamed freely in Dean's head as he climbed the icy stairs to the backdoor of the house. The lock, he was gratified to see, was probably the original one put on the house nearly a hundred years earlier when it was built. Picking it was a breeze, and the door the kitchen swung in with an evil hiss of rusty hinges.

"Yeah," Dean said in a frozen cloud of breath, "that wasn't at all creepy."

Once inside, he paused and listened. The only noises were those of the wind buffeting the house from the outside. In the beam of his flashlight, he could see construction debris all over the room. New kitchen cabinets were half-way built, plumbing was exposed, and the floors were massacred with mud and sawdust clumps. He made his way into the next room, which turned out to be a living room also in progress of being re-sheet rocked. However, what caught his eye was not the drywall job but the floor—specifically the one in front of the front door. He was drawn to it as he left an icy breeze skirt past him and send his heart racing. From his bag, he stripped the sawed off shotgun and checked that a salt round was chambered. He then moved forward and realized the gust was not a spirit passing by but actual wind snaking into the room through a busted window. Among the glass shards were footprints that appeared new for the snow ejected from the treads was not melted or frozen to the floor.

He looked through the grimy window but could not see anything beyond the porch as the swirl of flakes grew denser. He stood perfectly still near the foot of the stairs to the upper floor and listened again. It was a difficult task. His hands were shaking as adrenaline pumped freely in his veins, and his heart was throbbing loudly in his ears—an act that stopped a split second later as an ethereal voice sounded in his ear and a chill curled around his neck and stole his breath.

"Hello, Dean."

He gasped and whipped around, dropping is flashlight as he hefted the gun to his shoulder and prepared to fire. He blinked and stumbled backward into the wall at what he saw: Lucy Reese stood before him.

She wore a long wool coat, heeled boots that made zero sense for the time of year, and a smile that was wide but cold like her eyes.

"I knew you were here," she said as her eyes sparkled despite their frozen aspect. "I could feel you. I've been looking for you ever since I sensed you here."

"What?" Dean asked as he found his voice.

"I felt something enter the house earlier," she said. "It woke me it was so strong. I could move again. I could speak. I could see, but I couldn't see or hear what it was that got to me. Then, somehow, I recognized it. I knew it was you."

"No," Dean shook his head as he held firmly to his weapon but the barrel quivered in his grip. "You don't feel anything. You're dead."

"I know," she nodded and moved a step closer, sending Dean pressing his back harder against the wall as he held the gun firmly on her. "I figured that out when all the cops were here but none of them could hear me. I even tried leaving with them, but I can't make it out the door."

Dean forced himself to take a deep breath, feeling the icy chill sting his throat and make his insides shiver. He'd never seen a ghost. He had expected they would be see-through and sort of floaty not look like a movie character who just stepped off the screen. The urge to poke the gun through the image before him was strong, but he wasn't sure what the manners were for something like that. Granted, he might have known Lucy's body quite well at one time, but touching any part of her (or mirage of her) wasn't something he was prepared to do.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you, Lucy," he said.

"Don't be," she said with a flip of her hand. "It's not so bad. I mean, this part doesn't hurt."

"Okay," he nodded. "So you're not freaked out that you're a ghost? 'Cause I gotta say, it's rocked me back a little. Wasn't there some sort of bright light or Roma Downy chick here to take you heaven or wherever?"

Lucy shrugged and said she did feel other presences in the house, but anytime she tried to get near them something cold and angry pulled her away. It didn't matter what room she thought might hold the door for her to move on, she could never enter it.

"So you're not the only one here," Dean surmised. "Okay, that's good to know. I mean, you couldn't be the ghost that killed you. Who was it?"

"I don't know," she shrugged and placed a wispy yet frigid hand to his cheek. "But now that you're here, I don't even care. I was starting to think this was going to be torture, but now…"

"Now what?" he asked as she caressed his cheek.

A swirl of confusion and fog flooded his mind. He felt his chest get heavy and the air freeze in his lungs. He gasped and went rigid until his knees buckled and sent him to the floor. As he slipped downward, she lost contact with him and the cold pervading his body escaped and the grip on his throat released. He drew a sharp, painful breath and shook his head.

"What are you doing?" he asked. "What the hell was that?"

"It's how we can stay here together forever," she said. "Dean, don't you see? This can be our heaven. We'll have each other—always. We'll always be young. I'll always be pretty. You'll never go gray or get wrinkles. I won't need a facelift or a boob job."

"Dead is not attractive on anyone, Luce," he growled. "It's also a pretty crappy way to stay young."

She huffed and folded her arms. Her anger was potent and put an electrical charge in the air strong enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Dean bit back is other pissed off feelings and comments and reminded himself what he read in Bobby's journal. Ghosts weren't rational. They didn't have control of their emotions usually. They acted out, violently usually.

"Before we start picking out a china pattern," Dean said, "can you tell me where all the crap is that belonged to the family who used to live here?"

"In ashes under the snow," Lucy replied. "They took just about everything out when they started working on the place. Hauling it all to the dump would have cost money so the crew just burned everything in a big pile before the snow came."

"Awesome," Dean scoffed. "Nothing left at all? Didn't miss something in the basement maybe?"

"No, that's already refinished since they had to tear out the furnace," she replied. "The only room they didn't get at was the attic."

Dean lifted his eyes then retrieved his flashlight and pointed it at the stairs.

"Attic?" he questioned. "What's up there?"

"Don't know," she shrugged. "They found some bats apparently so they were waiting for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to come out and look for a nest. Apparently, they'll pay to capture and keep bats, which is totally gross—I don't care how much some geeks at the university want to study them or how many mosquitoes they eat. They probably have rabies or can turn you into a vampire."

Dean rolled his eyes and turned the flashlight on her, only to have the beam shine straight through her. He saw no reason to explain what actually created vampires. Lucy actually made Dean look like a serious student. Her mind was always more poised on the latest fashion or what was popular among her friends. In fact, she never gave Dean a second glance until the local paper ran a story about how he and his brother were nearly mauled by a bear on a camping trip; Dean's reported heroic effort carrying his brother to safety and summoning help using MacGyver-like tactics made him a minor celebrity for a week or two that summer—and that was when Lucy began her subtle stalking campaign.

For as odd was it was to think back to that time as being a happy one, Dean knew this New Year's Eve was odder still. He was in a haunted house, talking to his ex-not-quite-girlfriend who was a ghost about vampires.

"You're immune to both of those right now," Dean offered as he started up the stairs. "Have you made a visit to the attic?"

**-oOoOoOo-**

Bobby Singer's head hurt. It wasn't a hangover ache. It wasn't pain from getting tossed around by a ghoul or a ghost. It wasn't even lack of sleep making the space behind his eyes pound. It was simple defeat. Another hunter, a good one and a family man, was now a pile of ash because the evil that roamed the earth never seemed to lose a step and the good guys never seemed to get the upper hand for long.

He sighed and squinted into the swirl of snow that surrounded his car as he turned onto Old Highway 75 outside of Sergeant Buff, Iowa. For privacy reasons, Bill Harvelle wasn't roasted near his roadhouse in Nebraska. Instead, the service took place at on the stretch of land owned by the family of fellow hunter Jefferson McPhee, the man who was with him on the fatal hunt. Bobby had driven Harvelle's wife and daughter back to their tavern in Nebraska and was taking a backroads route home. It was a hunter's preference to avoid interstates whenever possible—fewer speed traps and fewer cops looking to notch their ticket quotas for the month. Given that New Year's Eve was always big business for the boys in blue, the old highway (although longer as ways home go) was the wiser route. He was just over an hour out based on miles but more like two based on weather as he stretched his neck and shoulders in an effort to fight off the brutal cramp setting into both. One of the biggest drawbacks of having basically hung up his salt and holy water six years earlier to become the favorite uncle to the Winchester kids was that he had grown soft (both in body and heart).

He could no longer endure endless car rides without feeling all the cricks and cramps of age. And he could no longer bury friends and shrug it off as part of the job. Those damn kids, the ones he loved as though they were his own, went and broke his nearly impenetrable armor. He thought (and not for the first time), if he didn't adore the damn idgits so much, he'd have busted both of their perfectly aligned noses. It was in the middle of his grumpy musing on the boys that his visitor dropped in and nearly sent them both off the road.

"Hey there, Bobby Wan Kenobi," the archangel Gabriel said as he appeared suddenly in the passenger seat of the tired hunter's leprous, light blue, '71 Chevelle.

The surprise caused a jolt in Bobby and found him standing on the brakes. The car skidded on the slick highway and fishtailed as it brought it to a stop just inches from a snow-caked guardrail that was barely visible in the flurry enveloping the car.

"Are you trying to kill me?" the hunter shouted.

"What? And ruin those rugged good looks?" Gabriel scoffed. "Perish the thought. So, how's the holidays treating you, Bob-o? You're looking grumpy. Well, grumpier, I guess. Did someone mix some fruitcake in your rum?"

"I've been at a funeral helping my dead friend's family pull themselves together," he scowled. "I'm in no mood for celestial reindeer games."

"So Santa dropped a load of coal in your stocking… again," Gabriel sighed. "So, a funeral you say. Whose? Anyone I know? Should I have my girl send flowers?"

"Bill Harvelle," Bobby replied sourly. "He was a hunter. A vamp hunt went south on him and the fang ripped him up before losing its head."

The angel nodded then lifted an eyebrow.

"Wait, did you say Harvelle?" Gabriel remarked. "Oh, right, the bar owner turned chew toy. Yeah, that guy was shredded in every version of this story I saw. He never did know who to trust in the heat of a hunt. If I recall, this is the one where he went up in smoke because his buddy torched the building around him to destroy all the corpses but forgot to drag his partner's ass out first. Well, you can put plans for revenge out of your mind. Harvelle's daughter is gonna knife both the bug-eyed hunter who used her father as bait and the friend who BBQ'ed him to a crisp. Since she doesn't know precisely what happened, she's adopted the 'kill 'em all and let Dad sort it out' motto. Good news though, you don't need to worry about her going too far rogue. Sweet Valley High will die of a gunshot wound a week after she draws first blood. Spoiler alert: Hers is a totally human killing. The guy who gets her is just a local tweaker she'll encounter during his boneheaded robbery attempt of the local Gas-n-Sip. It's a wrong place at the wrong time thing. Kind of a boring end for her but still better than a few others she could have seen-let me just say, like father, like daughter."

He nodded as he finished. Talking to Bobby sometimes made him chatty. It was the man's over all grumpy silence that make talking to him both easy and rarely problematic. He didn't tell anyone what he learned from his winged messenger. Of course, most of that was because the only people he talked to were the Winchesters and Momma and Poppa W had a rule that the two little W's were to only hear Disney version stories, which cut out the whole wide world of hunting from conversations. However, that evening, Gabriel got backchat he was not expecting.

"What are you talking about?" Bobby huffed. "Bill didn't die in a fire. I just told you he got mangled by a vampire. Jefferson didn't torched that warehouse until the day after Bill died and I was there to help. Bill's family knows exactly what happened to him because he told them. The hospital got him stable enough so he could make a phone call. He died a few hours after he talked to them."

The angel twisted in his seat and gaped. His complexion paled, and he shook his head vigorously.

"No," he disagreed. "That's not possible. You're messing with me. I know that never happened."

"Well, it did," Bobby snarled as he threw the car into gear again and pulled back onto the highway intent on making it home by midnight. "Ellen told me herself that Bill talked to her and their daughter one last time and said goodbye. He also made Jo promise, on his grave no less, that she'd let go of any idea of avenging him. She ain't happy about it, but she gave her daddy her word so I think she'll stick to it. That's another reason to thank Jack Hawkins. If he hadn't helped her daddy the way he did, she'd have taken off on some stupid revenge quest and gotten herself killed. That girl is all Ellen's got now so I owe Hawkins a drink and a thank you on behalf of Bill's family."

Gabriel glared with a startled expression. His eyes sharpened and flared blue for a split second. Bobby felt the power surge off him in that momentary blink. The hair on his arms (and a few other parts) stood up straight.

"Jack Hawkins?" Gabriel repeated then buried his face in his hands. "Oh boy. That is so not good."

"It was good," Bobby argued. "It's just too bad the guy didn't arrive at that warehouse 5 minutes sooner. From what Jefferson tells me, Hawkins might have been able to save Bill from getting ripped to shreds. The guy may be new to the game, but he's apparently not too shabby for a newcomer."

Gabriel wriggled in his seat as he felt his own electric surge. He ran his hands through his short, blond locks then clapped them together, lacing the fingers so tightly that his hands shook.

"Okay," he exhaled. "Brass tack time, old man. Do you know Hawkins?"

"No," Bobby shook his head. "Guy apparently dropped my name to a few folks, but I don't know him as far as I know. I've been out of the boots on the ground part of the game for a while now. I'd like to meet him."

"Yeah, I kind of doubt that," Gabriel muttered as he chewed his lip. "Okay, enough about him. What's your neighborhood Han Solo with the black Camaro doing these days?"

Bobby scrunched his face in confusion as he shot a sideways glance at the angel then deciphered his question based entirely on the car reference.

"You mean Dean?" he shrugged. "He's home for the holiday, pissing off his brother with his attitude, and giving his parents angina by forgetting to check in like he's supposed to. I have a lecture and ass kicking plans in store for him starting tomorrow. Why?"

"But there's nothing hinky with Tweedle Dum as far as you know?"

Bobby snarled at the jab but let it slide. Dean was no Einstein, but then again Einstein could never have survived as Dean Winchester. The retired hunter was serious about having plans for the elder of the Winchester children. He intended to corner the kid the next morning and give Dean a once-over for his own peace of mind then talk some sense into him about his aloofness. Being distant with his parents wasn't precisely new behavior for Dean. He did it when he was bothered by something and afraid they'd never accept or forgive whatever was making him feel worthless or guilty lately. Some of the bugs in that machinery had been in place since he left the word toddler behind, but the coldness he was showing his little brother bothered Bobby. Dean cutting Sam loose for any amount of time didn't seem like a small thing.

"Since he got home, he's been laying low as far as I know," he answered eventually, ignoring that he suspected he was laying his neighbors and any girl who gave him her number while he was at school. "It's been a rough homecoming for him. His former friend with benefits just died."

"Hold up," Gabriel interjected. "What friend?"

"Lucy Reese," Bobby said. "She was his Friday night, naked in the backseat dance partner during high school."

Gabriel blinked. That was seriously off-script. Lucy Reese was supposed to end up the wife of a senator and have a torrid affair with the president in 2007. The scandal would fuel nearly a year of late night comedy jokes and oddly spawn a women's empowerment movement. As far as the archangel recalled, she never was anyone to Dean Winchester. They attended the same high school, but she never gave him the time of day; she was supposed to consider him a resident of total loser-ville since he didn't mind spending time with his younger brother (one of her dorky brother's best friends).

"So," the archangel said more to himself, "this is happening. Some of it. Someone went and dipped the peanut butter in the chocolate anyway. Well, that's a reach around I wasn't expecting."

"What are you babbling about?" Bobby inquired.

"Not really sure, which actually scares me," Gabriel admitted. "We are truly through the looking glass right now, and it's giving me tingles—and not the kind I like. Wow, this was way worse than what I was expecting to hear. The rumbles around the supernatural water cooler were percolating about a certain big ticket fight getting some traction again. I had no idea that half of the band was already back together."

Bobby's brow furrowed in confusion as the angel rambled.

"And that's bad?" he asked.

"That's apocalyptic—literally," Gabriel swallowed. "The last time I was this nervous, I came out of hiding for the first time in a literal eon. You humans, you always need supervision, don't you? Can't take even a little vacay to sow some wild oats without you all throwing a kegger and getting 5-0 to show up. I see what I did wrong here. I should've never left Nitro with Glycerin. I'll admit it: It was the little one's tears; they got to me. Even when I put him on mute, I could sense them so I made the mistake of giving him his comfort wubbie for clinging purposes. Well, don't I have holy egg on my face? I guess I've learned my lesson. So, now I'll be going."

As he prepared to leave, Bobby reached across the space and grabbed his arm. It would do nothing to hold the angel in place, but it did prompt him to halt his exit all the same.

"Hold up," Bobby ordered. "You're here spewing nine kinds of crazy after asking about Dean. Why? What's going on?"

"I don't know," Gabriel said succinctly. "That's the problem. Like I told you in the past, I don't check up on Mike and Ike so I had no idea what was going on. To tell you the truth, I don't even want to know now. I will tell you this: I did lather and rinse already. I'm not repeating. This thing has legs and a mind of its own. I've learned my lesson. Far be it from me to throw a spanner in the works again. I wish you well. Go with Dad, my friend, and don't take any wooden nickels."

Bobby's glare held the angel in place as he remained unyielding and unamused. Gabriel slumped as he sighed.

"We're officially off the map," Gabriel explained. "I looked at every version—I mean that literally—every single one. This one, the one you're living as of right now, was not in the play book. Not at all. I don't know what else has happened so far that shouldn't. Obviously, something got this crazy train started down the tracks. If I had to put my finger on it, it would be your little Wendigo fan convention a few years back in Wyoming. I told you to avoid that, but you didn't and they stepped in some supernatural doo-doo out there—maybe even literally for all I know."

"They survived that," Bobby argued. "They think it was a bear."

Gabriel gave the junkman a doubting glance. He'd stood invisible in the forest just behind the boys when they collapsed from fear, pain, thirst, and fatigue on the first night after their flight from the monster. Sam was able to pass out (mostly due to pain) and get some rest, but Dean had been as alert as his panic suppressed concussion would allow him. Whatever churned in his mind that night, it wasn't thoughts of a bear—that much Gabriel knew. He had considered giving the teenager a little zap to allow him to sleep as the angel (for reasons that now baffled him more than they did then) decided to hold a secret, night-long vigil and keep the creature from tracking them down for a nighttime snack.

_Bobby's journal_, he thought and hung his head. He'd seen in it Dean's hands that night in the woods. He thought nothing of it at the time since it gave a plausible reason why they were protected from the creature.

"Damn those continuity errors," Gabriel growled.

Dean Winchester with a hunter's journal was a nothing special for Gabriel to see. At least, in most time lines it wasn't.

The problem was that the Dean who knew what hunting was did not exist in this version of the Winchester lives. This Dean was clueless—or was supposed to be.

The angel suddenly realized his mistake in not stripping the book for Dean's clutches and incinerating it or just flinging it into the forest to be lost for eternity. Dean had used the journal and drawn the Anasazi symbols in the dirt. Gabriel noted that he hadn't done them properly, likely due to his concussion, which was why the angel hung out doing his invisible man routine just in case. Unfortunately, the damage was done before the angel realized it. Dean's mind got opened to many ideas that night that apparently did not fade with the dawn.

"That's when it happened," Gabriel shook his head then sighed. "One small, little, insignificant detail. A blip on the screen, but it was enough. Well, nothing can fix it now. I mean, I'm not burning my mojo again to go back and make us take that left turn at Albuquerque. So the world is officially on its own and probably boned yet again. Maybe worse now than before. After all, Dean's got no pull on whoever Luci manages to wear to this prom."

"What are you saying?" Bobby growled with worry.

"Let me offer you some advice, Bob," the archangel shrugged in defeat. "It's smoke 'em if you've got 'em time. You're in for a bumpy ride, and I've gotta be…. anywhere but here. Honest to Dad, I thought I could change things time. Turns out by trying to keep everyone in neutral corners, I ended up crossing the streams anyway."

**-oOoOoOo-**

As attics go, it was both dusty and musty despite the bone-deep chill that pervaded the top floor of the old farmhouse. It took Dean nearly 10 minutes of hard yanking on a pry bar to get the frame to splinter and allow him access to the upper region. Once the wood around the sturdy frame shattered, Dean noted (with an inner chill that had nothing to do with the temperature around him) that the door was bolted from the other side. Whatever was in the attic last didn't want to be disturbed.

He scanned the floor and saw the litter of half a century earlier: boxes containing old catalogs; picture frames (both empty and filled); a free-standing rack holding moth-eaten coats; a disintegrating fake Christmas tree; and a creepy, cobweb strewn pile of ancient children's toys like hollow-eyed dolls, a wooden train, and paint peeling rocking horse. The horse caught his eye mostly because it began to rock the moment the beam from the flashlight hit it. His heart jumped to this throat and threatened to escape until he heard the nasty giggle. Dean jerked his light higher and cast the beam through Lucy who stood not far from the old toy.

"When did you get so jumpy?" she asked.

"When talking to dead people stopped freaking me out," he muttered in reply. "What are you doing up here, Lucy?"

"I'm lonely," she said. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for whatever might have kept the ghost here," Dean said then looked over his shoulder. "You could help with that. Anything feel, I don't know, ghosty or protected to you? Whatever it is, it's kept old man Simpson or a member of that family tied to this house."

"Tied?" she purred as she appeared at his shoulder and traced her ethereal finger along his neck. "Like a bondage thing? Kinky."

Dean jumped at her touch and recoiled from it. He felt as much as heard her icy, perturbed scoff just before what felt like frozen daggers gouged into the side of his neck and dropped him to his knees. He dropped his canvas bag as he tried to jerk free of Lucy's claws.

"You didn't used to mind a few scratches," her cold breath caressed his ear. "Living with a priest make you a monk?"

Trying to reason with ghosts was a bad idea—that much was evidence from Bobby's notes. Pissing them off was apparently extremely easy. Conscience and common sense, it seemed, left at the same time the pulse stopped forever. Dean wondered how bad of a crackpot a soul became after death if it never had much of those tempering forces in life. In life, Lucy was a lot of things (fun, flexible, and daring) and not all of them were good (fickle, reactionary, and vindictive).

"Just trying to do a job here," Dean replied as he rose up and made sure he gripped tightly to the shotgun.

Pumping a few salt rounds into Lucy would make her go away for a while, but when she came back there would definitely be hell to pay. As someone heading to the real place in not too many years, he didn't want to get a jump start on the torture he assumed was commonplace there any sooner than necessary.

"And then what will you do?" she asked as she appeared in front of him. "You're not going to leave me, are you? Dean, I'm so lonely."

"One problem at a time," he replied. "Help me get rid of your evil landlord here, and then I'll see what I can do to get you a nice vacation in cloud city."

"Where is that?"

He smirked at her stupidity as much as the image of her wearing the gold, Princess Leia bikini she sported at Halloween their senior year—a getup from a movie she never saw but that she heard Dean remark about during class once. She got a lot of offers for company the night she wore that, but the only one she accepted was the non-verbal tilt of the head Dean offered her before they took off in his car before anyone saw them together. His smile quickly faded as did the memory. Screwing around with the head cheerleader was so cliché and yet it was his favorite high school memory.

"It's a place where you belong," Dean said feeling a tug in his chest that reminded him she was in fact gone and he would need to find a way to put her to rest as well. "Hey, do you remember the last time you were, you know, alive and in this house? Where were you?"

She scrunched her face as though deep in thought—an action that always seemed to make her weary in life as thinking was never Lucy's strong suit. She was more of a reactor. She sensed something and flew off the handle, laughed, or pouted about it. As a range of emotions went, she was more puddle than ocean.

"I remember I had to turn on the faucet so the pipes wouldn't break in the cold," she said. "I think I was on the second floor, but that's all I remember."

Dean nodded. When police found her body, she was outside. There was blood around her. She appeared to have slipped and hit her head in the driveway. Chuck voiced doubts. He thought it odd she could have slipped where she did and did not see how her body arrived at its resting place. That told Dean it was likely the cops saw an accidental death and did no investigating beyond a cursory look inside the farmhouse, meaning they likely did not go beyond a few feet into the dwelling. If Lucy got attacked on the second floor, her blood was long dried there and seemed into the wooden floorboards. Per Bobby's journal, blood (like skin, hair, nails, and bones), could tie a spirit to a location. Dean was pondering how precisely to remove what was left of Lucy from the house when his flashlight sliced through the cobweby gloom and both found his target and his solution.

"Bones," he breathed out in a plum of frozen breath, "equals burn."

**-oOoOoOo-**

Pain woke Sam.

It started in his cheek. He noted it as his eyes opened to find himself laying in a tangle on a gritty floor that smelled of wood shavings. From the fuzzy feeling around his lips and the tickle in his nose, he had inhaled more than a bit of sawdust. He sat up quickly in the pitch black and ran frantic hands over his face to clear the debris. As he did so, he found his lip tacky with drying floor.

He groped around the floor until he found the wall. It took him a minute to recall where he was, but he could not reason out how he got there. He recalled being with Tommy when he began talking in a weird voice and saying utter nonsense. Then…

Somehow, Sam got pushed out of the room and flung into another room. It made zero sense unless someone else was in the house and had grabbed him. If it was the owners or some of the constructions crew, surely a lecture and throwing the boys out made more sense then locking them up separately in darkened room.

Unless they were waiting for the cops.

That too seemed odd, but Sam's mind was a whirl of worst-case scenarios and each of them ended with him sitting in a jail cell while waiting to make his one phone call. His heart began to race as he worried in a panic who he should call. The proper thing to do would be to call his parents, but the thought of saying, "Dad I got arrested for trespassing" made him queasy. Just as hard to swallow would be the disappointed look on his mother's face. Calling Bobby for help had some merit, except he wasn't home and even if he was, he'd still make Sam tell his parents.

Dean, however….

"Dean," Sam gasped as he grabbed at his wrist to find the face of his watch.

Several seconds of groping under the cuff of his jacket revealed the timepiece and let him know that (first, his vision was blurry) that he had been down for the count for nearly 30 minutes. The night was getting away from him, which meant Dean was getting away also. The more Sam thought about it, the great his worry bit into his bones. There was no card game with Chuck; the weapons from Dean's room were in the Camaro; and Dean was not where his family could easily find him.

He felt his way along the wall until he found a doorknob. He turned it freely in his hand but found that despite that it would not budge. He then yanked and tugged, grunting softly as he felt sweat begin to bead in his brow despite the coldness of the small space. Shouting for help was on his lips, but he paused. Someone threw him in the room and locked him in there after all.

Sam pressed his ear to the door and listened for any sounds in the hallway behind his small cell, but all he could note was the pounding of his own heart. There was no sound of Tommy's ranting. There was no warble of other voices. There was no thump of the booted feet of the sheriff's department marching in to slap on cuffs. For an absurd and desperate moment, Sam realized he would be insanely happy (perhaps to the point of weeping) to see Dean's tagalong idiot of a buddy Chuck in that instant. The guy might be the dullest tool in any shed, but he was loyal to Dean. He might not understand Dean's (previous) tolerance for his little brother, but Chuck would never do anything to piss Dean off or betray their friendship. Putting Sam in cuffs or hauling him to the sheriff's office in any officially capacity would certainly do that (regardless of whether Dean honestly gave a damn about his little brother any longer or not—it was a question of authority and Dean objected to authority in all its guises that wore a uniform).

But recalling that Chuck was far away (that his distance was half of Sam's worry for the night) spiked the fear in Sam's chest yet again. He planted on foot on the wall and gripped the doorknob tight as he pulled with all his might against the door. His hands eventually slipped and he shot backward, colliding soundly with the wall. The impact wasn't as bad as when he was thrown into the room, but it made his head swim for a moment all the same. His breath caught in his chest as he paused and listened for surely the immense thud of his collision would draw the interest of the house's other occupants.

Instead, the house seemed to grow even more still, an ominous and unnatural kind of stillness that was more at home in horror fiction than in daily life as Sam Winchester knew it. His gut knotted and told him something was wrong, terribly and unspeakably wrong. Tommy should have heard him. The other intruders should have heard him. One of them should have shouted or come to investigate the crash in the small room.

But nothing happened. That gave Sam an even scarier possibility than jail: He was trapped.

What if Tommy's weird behavior was a reaction to whatever he was taking that evening? Sam knew he had a thermos full of vodka, but what if he took something else? What if he'd passed out? Had a seizure? Had wandered out into the snow like Lucy? What he was dead?

No one knew they were at the house. Sam didn't know when the construction crew would return. Polly Decker Road was a dead end and not a direct route from or to anywhere. No one would go looking there for two missing teenagers. With the storm growing stronger, there wouldn't even be tracks in the snow to show a car passed along the road by morning.

That let Sam trapped in a freeze room without light or water (and possibly with a mild concussion). His parents would freak. They wouldn't know where to look for him and Dean… Dean might be off doing who knew what. In one night—the first night in Sam's memory since returning home after his decade of absence that his parents went out—they would start to relive their nightmare from 1983. They would return home after spending a couple hours together to find their sons were missing. Again.

And this time, Sam doubted they would get both of them back.

From his seated position, he thrust himself forward onto his knees and clasped his hands. The last time he had resorted to this behavior, it had been his most desperate hour. His mother lay dying in the hospital, possibly just hours from her death, when he made a desperate plea to the ether. Medical science might have called her remission merely "spontaneous," but the youngest Winchester felt in his heart that there was more to her miraculous recovery than science. He was certain there were otherworldly forces at work, and he was the one who summoned them at that time. So, times being desperate again (this time for both his parents and Dean), Sam took a deep breath and focused all his will just as he had the last time he had prayed.

"God," Sam whispered with panic rising in his strained voice, "you've got to help me out again. Please. I've got to get out of here, and I've got to find my brother. I can get in trouble for what Tommy and I did here tonight later, and I'll accept that punishment as deserved, but I really need to help right now."

His hands began to shake has he gripped them tightly. His eyes too began to ache was he kept them sealed shut. They only opened when he felt a presence in the room with him.

**-oOoOoOo-**

**A/N:** More to come.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Again, delays beyond my control in publishing. FF won't let me upload and the work-around is tedious and makes a mess of the formatting, but my readers are worth the aggravation of getting it done. Thanks for your patience.

**-oOoOoOo-**

Dean stared at the bones on the floor. They were piled behind a tipped over chair, behind a stack of cobweb covered trunks. Above them, a rope dangled from where it was long-ago lashed to a willing rafter. Among the bones beneath the makeshift noose were the scraps of cloth that were once a middle-aged man's clothing. The eye-less skull stared up at Dean with its barren, lipless grin.

"Suicide," Dean surmised.

The remains obviously rotted and moldered for half a century, forgotten, ignored, neglected. Whatever the reason, no one ever bothered to do a wellness check on the man. No one ever gave the house a thorough once-over, not even the recent buyer. Lucy's story about bats was simply evidence of laziness and eagerness to make a quick buck. Dean wondered what would have happened if the new owners had found the bones.

"Out in the trash, probably," he sighed cynically. "Sorry, old man. I don't know if you deserved better, but I'll send you on your way now."

Dean dropped his bag and pulled out the supplies Bobby's journal indicated were necessary. For a moment, he thought he might be able to collect the bones to set them ablaze outside, but as he bent down to gather them he saw the dark stain in the floorboards. Whatever oozed out of the man was well and truly dried into the boards. Even a trace of DNA, a drop of dried blood, a sliver of a fingernail might be enough to let the ghost remain tethered to the house. Chopping out the floorboards wasn't an option either. Who knew how much ick from the man seeped into the studs and drywall below?

He contemplated his options until a chill caressed his neck. He turned his head cautiously to find Lucy looming behind him as he squatted near the bone pile.

"Is that a skeleton?" she asked. "They're dingy and kind of brownish. I thought bones were supposed to be white like the ones on that creepy skeleton in biology class."

"Well, these have been up here rotting for a few decades," Dean said. "Oh, and the ones at school were plastic."

"People can have plastic skeletons?"

Dean groaned and hung his head as he shook it. Although he was no one's idea of a scholar, Lucy did make him appear a bit superior from time to time. The more he thought about her, the more he realized that the stain in the floor under the bone pile was a problem as was whatever remains tethered Lucy to the home. Her body was gone but obviously some scrap or drip of her remained in the structure. That left Dean with only one option to put everyone in the house lacking a heartbeat to rest once and for all.

"Um, Lucy, maybe you should take a walk or whatever it is you do," Dean said. "I've gotta do a thing here and… Well, it's work."

Her lip curled, as he knew it would at the dreaded W word. Lucy was not one for anything other than fun in life. It was not a stretch to assume her spirit retained that high level of adverse to effort at anything other than her appearance in death.

"When you're done, you'll stay with me?" she asked eagerly.

"When I'm done up here, I'll come downstairs," Dean promised. "You can maybe show me around or something."

Her grin, cold and hideous on her harshly illuminated face, sent a shiver down his spine. She traced and icy finger down his chest as she blinked coyly.

"Or something," she repeated in a breathy voice then vanished in a blink.

**-oOoOoOo-**

Although there was no light in the room, Sam clearly saw the outline of a person standing just inches from him. It was an odd sensation knowing he could not reliably see what was there while knowing in the same instant that his eyes did not deceive him. Stranger still was the answer his mind churned up moments later when he identified his newly arrived companion.

"Why do you feel like Dean?"" the female voice, edgy and angry, emanated from the dark asked.

Sam gasped and collided with the door as he backed away from the unexpected question. He pressed his back into the wooden panel and fumbled a hand along it to find the knob. It turned uselessly in his hand as a force far stronger than him kept it sealed shut.

"Who's there?" Sam asked in a trembling voice.

From the darkness, a shape began to appear like a light on a dimmer switch turned in the luminescent direction. First, there was simply the outline of a form half a foot shorter than Sam. It had narrow shoulders that eventually became distinct when a cloud of yellow hair appeared cascading over them. Once he pieced together his visitor was a young female, he did not need ot see all her features to identify her with his eyes. His mind screamed that he was losing it and his heart raced and sought a way to jump from his chest in shock.

"Lucy Reese?" he gasped.

"Why did I think you were Dean?" she demanded with a scoff. "You don't look like him, but I sensed him. I thought he came down here without me."

Her words were angry and made the hollows around her eyes appear deeper and darker. Her lips, the ones that pouted and gained her much attention during high school, twisted into a cruel sneer.

"How are you here?" Sam asked. "You're dead."

"What is that?" she replied rather than answer as she stabbed a finger into Sam's chest.

Her touch was hard and cold, like being jabbed with an icicle. He pressed his hand to the spot that both felt frozen and burned in the same instant. As he did so, he felt the lump of metal beneath his shirt. He tugged on the cord around his neck and drew out the amulet that he lifted from his brother's room after Dean did the unthinkable and took off the necklace Sam had given him years earlier.

"I recognize that," Lucy snarled and hissed with more anger in her words then shoved Sam hard into the door. "That doesn't belong to you. You stole it! That belongs to my boyfriend!"

As he bounced against the unyielding portal, he began shaking his head. It must be hypothermia, he told himself. Or he'd hit his head harder than he realized when he somehow got stuck in this room. Maybe there were some chemical fumes from paint or a gas leak in the house that was making him hallucination. That might explain why Tommy was acting crazy as well. They'd been exposed to something that was impacting the perception centers in their brain. How long before it did serious damage?

"Okay, you aren't really here," Sam said as he clawed his way to a standing position again.

Despite in a quavering, breathy voice that he felt turn into frozen plums as the words rushed over his lips. The sudden dip in the chill of the room bit hard into his skin and made him shiver in the panic sweat erupting on him that hit overdrive when suddenly a loud crash sounded on the floor above followed by a scream of anger and pain.

"What the hell was that?" Sam asked and received an answer from the sneering face in front of him.

"That's the creep who won't let me leave," she said and managed an eye roll. "He's probably trying to kill Dean. It won't be easy because he's knows some karate kid thing, but in the end the creep will win, which is good. It'll save me the trouble."

"What trouble?" Sam blinked.

"Of killing Dean myself," Lucy answered. "He can't stay here with me if he's alive. I mean, how would I ever trust him not to sneak off and find some living bitch to hook up with when my back was turned if he was still alive and breathing? What are you, stupid?"

"Kill Dean?" Sam swallowed and stared at the vision. "You don't mean my Dean?"

"No, I mean my Dean," she asserted through clenched teeth as she wrapped her cold but insanely strong hands around Sam's throat and gave a warning squeeze. "Don't make me waste my strength on you. Get this straight, twerp. I saw him first. Besides, he doesn't swing your way. He came here for me and we're going to be together forever."

"Together forever?" Sam rasped in her grasp. "You mean you dead, like you? My brother, Dean Winchester? He's here? He's dead? He can't be."

Saying the words choked him nearly as much as her steal cold hands.

**-oOoOoOo**-

The first clue Dean had that he was in serious trouble came too late.

He heard a creak of the floorboards behind him, but he thought nothing of it. There was something surreal about talking to Lucy but also something familiar so that it never occurred to him that a ghost possessed no mass and therefore would have no weight to make a warped floorboard move. Dean was too busy raining salt down on the bone pile then dowsing it with lighter fluid to think of logic. In the last year, he'd chopped the heads of vampires, impaled a wraith, and exorcised numerous demons. Everyday logic didn't seem to have a place on hunt. So he paid no attention to the sound behind him until he felt his feet leave the floor.

He sailed at great velocity toward the wall, smacking into it like he was a bug hitting a windshield. His shoulder took the brunt of the impact, but he still collapsed to the floor with a yelp of pain. He tried to shake his head clear and regretted the motion as soon as he began, but that was not what actually stole his breath. It was the sudden weight of a teenage boy kneeling over him and reaching his thick fingers around Dean's neck and squeezing.

"You can be mine, too," the teenager hissed.

"What?" Dean choked then stared as his eyes bulged from his head from both the pressure of the hands strangling him and his shock at recognizing his assailant. "Tommy?"

"He's mine," Tommy hissed. "You're all mine. No one leaves. Ever."

Dean thrashed and grunted and flailed as he tried to break free. He clutched at the hands gripping his throat and found he could not budge them. He frantically scanned the attic for anything he might use as a weapon, and his eyes fell upon an object that was simply too on the nose to ignore. Resting not far from him was an actual iron, the ancient kind that was so old even grandparents only used the rusting, clunky things as doorstops. Dean thrust his hand out and grabbed the smooth wooden surface of the handle made to protect the palm from the intense heat used to smooth wrinkles from clothing. He swung it, hissing in pain as the weight pulled viciously on his throbbing shoulder, at Tommy. He did his best to avoid the kid's head to keep from killing him.

As the edge of it collided with Tommy's shoulder, he yelled and toppled backward. Dean dropped the iron and clawed his way back to his bag. Tommy was on him again, tackling him from behind as he reached an arm around Dean's neck. Dean dropped to his knees then lunged at his bag. His hand fished out the lighter he stashed in the bag. Two desperate flicks finally produced a flame. Dean tossed it behind him and hoped he hit his mark.

"What did you do?" Tommy screamed in his ear then let go long enough for Dean to crawl forward and yank out the iron pry bar he kept in the bag with his other tools.

He gripped the bar like the high school baseball player he had been two years ago and got ready to swing for the left field bleachers. Tommy stood beside the bone pile as the lighter guttered, tempted by the fumes of the lighter fluid but not in actual contact with them.

"Oh fuck," Dean growled as the kid turned to face him with a malevolent slant to his eyes.

"You're trying to burn my house," he roared and advanced on Dean.

Hitting the kid in the head would cause a massive head wound, possibly even a deadly skull fracture. Letting possess-Tommy maul him would result in Dean joining the pile of bones on the floor as a new resident of Sioux Falls' version of the Hotel California. Without much time for debating what was wise or what was most likely to work, Dean simply tossed the pry bar at Tommy like passing a basketball. Instinct kicked in, whether it was the ghost's or Tommy's Dean did not know. Whoever was responding, Tommy caught the iron rod then howled in shock and pain as he hit the floor. Directly behind him, a misty cloud appeared then vanished in a blink.

"Tommy, that you?" Dean shouted as he gripped the crumpled kid's shoulder then received a whimper that sounded more like Sam's dorky friend than the harsh voice he emitted earlier. "You gotta get up!"

To help him along, Dean yanked the kid's shoulder and brought him to his feet. Dean then kicked the still burning lighter with his boot. A sudden inhale sounded from the floor and fire burst on the floorboards. It hungrily consumed the remnants of clothing around the bones then ravenously began chewing on the floor, creeping toward the boxes and crates in the attic, and crawling toward Dean and Tommy.

"Run," Dean said as he shoved Tommy to the door. "Get the hell out of here! Now!"

**-oOoOoOo-**

Like a fan blowing hot air, the room where Sam was trapped grew warmer. He wondered if it was due to his panic, but swiftly began coughing as his eyes started burning. His mind breathed a single, terrifying word to him: fire.

"We've got to get out of here," he said to Lucy.

"Good luck," she scoffed then vanished.

Sam reached for the door, prepared to kick his way through the wood barrier if needed, but found the knob now turned and released the claps. He yanked it open and stepped into the hallway to find smoke wafting toward him as an eerie orange glow shown down on him from the ceiling. He made his way forward as the sound of feet thundered toward him and two bodies spilled into the hall from a door on his left.

One of them was Tommy. He rolled into the hallway and choked as he coughed. He was crying and groping along the floor in search of something to help him stand. Another figure appeared behind him and hauled him to his feet.

"Dean?" Sam shouted as he rushed toward them.

"What are you doing here?" his brother yelled then handed Tommy off to him. "Get him outside. Now!"

"Dean, what's going on?" Sam demanded as he grabbed hold of Tommy's coat to keep him standing. "I thought I saw Lucy."

"A lot of that going around," Dean snarled.

As he spoke, he pressed a canvas bag (the one Sam saw previously in Dean's closet) into his hands. From it, he drew a sawed off shotgun and a book of matches. As Sam watched in confusion, Dean felt to his knees and stared at the floor.

"It's a lot of sawdust, don't you think?" he asked but did not seem to need an answer. "It'll have to do."

"Do for what?" Sam demanded.

Before he could get an answer, a mighty force flung Sam and Tommy back into the wall. A groan sounded from the ceiling as well as a splintering noise. Waves of flames suddenly burst above them and began sprawling on the ceiling and creeping toward the walls. Sam stared in horror at the fiery tomb closing in on them. His eyes opened even wider when Lucy flashing into sight wearing the bitchiest expression Sam had ever seen.

"Lover," she addressed Dean, "just what do you think you're doing?"

"Dumping your ass once and for all," Dean replied then leveled the gun at her.

The muzzle burst dazzled Sam's eyes for a moment, but he sank to his knees as the force pinning him to the wall released. He grabbed onto Tommy and got him to his feet as well. Dean then barked another order for them to get outside.

"What about you?" Sam asked as he started toward the stairs holding up his friend.

"I'll be right behind you," Dean shouted.

"Dean, the fire is consuming this place," Sam said.

"That's the idea," Dean replied. "Go!"

The hike down the stairs felt like an eternity to Sam. He guided Tommy out and breathed a glorious breath of cold, fresh air once they cleared the porch. They slogged their way through the snow to the car. Sam dumped Tommy into the back then turned to stare anxiously at the house. Flames were stabbing through the roof. The pack of snow that previously blanketed it was long gone. Even the steady flakes falling did not slow it. An evil orange light flickered behind the window as smoke began leaking out of the front door like the nostril of a snoozing dragon.

"Come on, Dean," Sam said through gritted teeth.

A minute ticked by then another. The flames grew higher; the crackling sound of the house crumbling grew louder; the smoke from the door grew thicker, but there was no Dean. Panic spiked in Sam's chest again so he raced back across the snowy ground and did the opposite of what his brother ordered: He ran into the fire.

**-oOoOoOo-**

The walls were starting to buckle.

Or so Dean thought. It was hard to tell since he was starting to lose consciousness between the smoke filling his lungs and the psycho ghost chick crushing his throat. Lucy did not take well to being shot with rock salt (or dumped, even in jest). She had reappeared as Dean had attempted to ignite some of the large piles of sawdust and wood shavings on the floor. While the blaze upstairs seemed likely to consume the house now, there was a minute or two when he was concerned it might snuff itself and leave whatever drippings of her remained in the house still active. As he began to blackout, he scolded himself for forgetting that reason (like logic) had no place on a hunt for him usually.

He felt his face grow tingly with lack of oxygen and his limbs grow heavy with fatigue. She had him off the floor, pinned with an amazing strength she never had in life. Dean's head bobbed forward as he heard a voice that was not supposed to be there.

Sam shook like he was hip deep in frigid waters as he watched his brother, pinned to the wall with his feet several inches off the floor, dangling in the ghost's murderous grasp as she squeezed the life from Dean. His eyes were closing and his arms dropped as he lost the ability to push back and fight.

"LET HIM GO!" Sam shouted.

Lucy merely turned her head, none of her strengthen shifting from her spot.

"I told you," she roared as the fire gained power and momentum sucking away the air around them, "he's mine!"

Dean eeked a painful, sharp breath as he narrowed his watering eyes on the fierce expression on Sam's face.

"Sammy," Dean's strangled cry was barely audible above the hissing sound Lucy's form emitted. "I said get out."

"Not without you," he replied.

Lucy snapped her gaze back to Dean and showed no signs of concern as the fire began crawled toward them and the smoke enveloped them. The roiling air nearly obscured her and cloaked her prisoner in the fog. As Dean's head lolled to the side and a final gurgle guttered from his throat, Sam spied the shotgun his brother evidently dropped. Sam had never touched a firearm until that moment, but he hefted the stock and leveled the shortened barrel at the semi-translucent form in front of him as rage welled in his chest.

With a prayer that what he was about to do was right, Sam squeezed the trigger.

What seemed like a million chards exploded from the barrel. The sound nearly burst Sam's ear drums, but he heard as much as felt a thud in front of him. Keeping hold of the weapon in case a second shot was needed, he dropped to his knees and crawled forward. Vision was hazy as the heat and the smoke began to blind him, but his hand found the cloth of Dean's jacket. Sam shook his brother's shoulder to rouse him.

There was no reaction. He gripped and yanked harder and only realized he was screaming his brother's name when his throat began to scorch from the strain and the compromised air. His words, as they registered in his conscious mind, startled him with their brutal honesty as much as their abject fear.

"You're not dead," Sam hollered as he groped forward and found his brother's arm. "Dean, you can't leave me! When we were little, you promised me you'd never leave me! Now, get up! Dean!"

He yanked the lifeless arm over his own shoulders and was preparing to heave and drag him down the stairs before the fire consumed them (or Lucy returned to finish them both off). In the moment he was trying to gain his balance, a crippling coughing fit struck him as his head began to swim. He slumped to the floor as the heat pressed down, and the smoke seared his lungs.

A sensation of distant but definite panic fought through the mire clouding Dean's brain as he heard the distant echoes of his brother's panicked cry to him. Dean found himself coughing and retching as he snapped awake and found he could barely see. Bright orange tongues raced toward him as he squinted and tried to determine where he was. The answers he sought burst into his mind as he saw Sam face down on the floor beside him struggling to breath. The sight was enough for him to thrust all feelings of pain, confusion, and fear into a dark corner of his mind and tap into his final reserve of strength. He clawed his way to his knees then looped an arm under Sam's and hauled upward, dragging his brother onto his back then staggered toward the stairs.

They would have tumbled down in a broken and bruised mess if Sam had not jerked himself awake and grabbed onto the bannister just as Dean gripped the wall for support. With a singleness of mind and the type of coordination that only comes with a lifetime of knowing precisely where one's partner was without needing to see him, they raced on wobbly legs down the stairs, holding tightly to each other as they rushed into the night then finally collapsed in the snow just beyond the porch as the roof groaned and part of it collapsed into the house while the flames danced higher into the night, greedily sizzling as they consumed the falling snow.

"Dean?" Sam coughed as he finished heaving while on his hands and knees.

His brother lay beside him on his back wheezing and gasping as his chest heaved. Sam reached for him and touched his chest only to have him recoil and roll away as he winced. Sam scrambled to his side and held his breath as he looked for the cause of his pain. He noted small rips and pockmarks in Dean's canvas coat. In a panic that rock salt could penetrate both multiple layers of cloth and the flesh, he tore at Dean's jacket and flannel shirt. He only allowed himself to exhale when he was able to see Dean's t-shirt. Although there were a few small dabs of blood, there was no large hemorrhaging wound.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked breathlessly.

"Quit feeling me up," Dean growled as he pulled away and rolled onto his side while attempting to get to his feet. "You shot me."

"I shot a ghost," Sam scoffed. "You were just… in the way."

"Choose a different angle next time," Dean rasped as he managed to rise to his knees and check the damage himself. "No wait. Never do it again. That's a better order. Fuck that hurts."

"You're not bleeding," Sam offered contritely.

"At least not on the outside… much," his brother coughed then sighed as he heard Sam gasp. "I'm fine. Just stings. That's all."

"You could have cracked a rib," Sam worried as he stood on shaky knees then offered his brother a hand up.

"I didn't," Dean assured him as he got unsteadily to his feet and cleared his throat as he attempted to find his swagger and bravado in an effort to convince himself and Sam that all was well. "It feels different when that happens. This is annoying, not painful."

As if on cue, the brothers turned to look at the swiftly charring structure. There was no sign of a ghost, just dancing flames and billowing dark smoke as the roof finally collapsed and fell inward.

"Well, second floor's really on fire now," Dean nodded. "Guess we'll call that job done."

The fire gobbled up the ancient structure with its plaster walls, newspaper and hay insulation, and dry timbers. The fire sent tongues licking high into the darkened sky, lapping at the heavy flakes that fell down on the scene. Sam and Dean straggled forward toward the car, each holding the other up as much as their own legs. They slipped and skidded on the slick driveway. Dean gave a terse order to Sam to get in the car as he spied Tommy slumped in the backseat. Sam wrenched the front passenger door open as Dean flung himself into the driver's seat gratefully finding the keys in the ignition. The engine sparked to life instantly.

"What just happened?" Sam coughed and gasped for breath. "I don't understand. How was any of that possible? How did you even know I was here?"

Guilt and late-dawning dread crashed and collided in Dean's eyes as he hung his head. He had come so close to hurting his brother, ending his life possibly, all because he thought he knew what he was doing. Father Reardon warned him about hunting alone, and Sam had nearly paid the price for Dean's arrogance.

"I didn't know you were," Dean confessed in an angry snap. "I came in through the back. I had no idea anyone was inside until Tommy jumped me in the attic. I nearly burned the house down with you in it. I'm sorry, Sam."

The younger Winchester leaned back at the vehemence and anguish in his brother's voice, but the quaking of his words told the truth of the matter. He was less mad at Sam than he was in himself for doing something that nearly harmed his little brother. They did not physically fight often and usually never harmed each other beyond bruised egos, but on the rare occasion in their younger days when Dean's strength or reach exceeded what Sam expected in a wrestling match and hurt him (even in the smallest ways), Dean would beat himself up internally for it longer after Sam barely recalled uttering even the tiniest yelp.

"You didn't know," Sam exonerated him. "I shouldn't have been here, but I still don't know why you're here at all. What were you doing? How did you know to do… well, all of that?"

"Long story," Dean dismissed the question. "Let's just get out of here for now."

Sam nodded, his head puzzling on a million questions and his limbs both ached and shook from the recent ordeal. He shivered in the passenger seat and noted with some aggravation that Tommy was sleeping peacefully in the back. He twitched and nuzzled the seat a few times signaling that he was unharmed and apparently unshaken by the evening. Dean threw the car into gear then floored the accelerator as they raced in reverse down the driveway.

The tires spun briefly but ate through the snow covering the rutted driveway to find traction. The car swerved and skidded but he got it to the road then whipped the wheel sideways to spin them into facing the right direction.

"We're gonna go off the road," Sam warned.

"No, I'm making it impossible to get a tire impression if the cops come," Dean snarled.

He slammed on the breaks as they hit the road and spun the wheel to shift the nose of the car in the right direction. After throwing the call into drive, the vehicle then zigged and zagged under his command, once even spinning a full 360 degrees as they reached the barren intersection half a mile up the road. As they reached the snowy yet paved road, he let off the gas and drove at a more reasonable pace toward Benson Road. Sam turned around to see the road empty behind them and no discernible tire impressions as they made their way away from the burning house. Through the relentless snow, he could not see any flames through the thicket of trees that surrounded the fields on Polly Decker Road. He suspected that with the weather being wild and the evening being one where most people were inside celebrating, it would be a while before anyone might notice smoke and call the fire department. He turned his attention back to his brother and stared at Dean with wide eyes. Whether he knew what he was doing or whether the countermeasures were all mere luck, Sam was impressed.

"No one will ever knew we were there," he marveled.

"See," Dean said. "Being a delinquent isn't quite as easy as it looks. It takes a lot of thought and planning to be thoughtless and act impulsively."

"Where are we going now?"

"Bobby's," Dean said. "Here's our story. You and Tommy had trouble with his car—this Japanese piece of crap—as you were leaving our house. You saw my car at Bobby's so you pulled in and had me look at it. We were there more than an hour, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it. To be safe, since I think you're both useless as mechanics, I said I'd followed Tommy back to his place in my car in case the engine stalled on him again. That's how the night went."

Sam nodded. It was vague enough to be believable. The fewer details that could be fact-checked the better, he surmised. There was nothing wrong with the car, ergo Dean not finding anything was both useful and true. It also gave an excuse for why Dean was with two high school kids when he was supposed to be playing cards with off-duty cops. It made them each the others' alibis. The trick was going to be getting Tommy to play along.

"Hey, Tommy boy!" Dean barked, rousing his backseat passenger as they turned onto Benson Road and started toward the salvage yard. "Did you hear that, dude? Car trouble ruined your night, okay?"

"It did?" he replied. "Okay."

He then offered a groggy nod and sat listlessly in the back. Dean's eyes darted to the rear view mirror as his brow wrinkled. Doubt swelled in his mind as it appeared the kid heard him but was not processing the words. Not that Dean could blame him. He had just learned ghosts were real and got possessed by a murderous one. It was a lot to take in particularly on New Year's Eve.

Dean sighed as he guided the car into Bobby's salvage yard and pulled Tommy's car alongside his own near the garage. He directed Sam and Tommy to start toward the Reese house then promised he would follow them the whole way. Sam shook his head.

"No, we can't do that," Sam said, halting Dean's approach to his snow covered car. "Tommy's in no condition to drive."

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied as he ran his sleeve over the rear window of his Camaro to clear the snow. "You're driving him in his car."

"Me?" Sam argued. "I'm only 15. I don't have a license."

"So?" Dean shrugged. "You've got a permit. If you're worried about the law, it just says you just need a licensed driver in the car with you. Tommy's got a license so you're covered."

"Yeah, on a technicality," Sam argued. "He just passed the test last month, and he's drunk."

"Doesn't invalidate his license," Dean said. "Look, I taught you how to drive when you were 12, and I know Dad's taken you out a few times before you officially start Driver's Ed in a few weeks. That big head of yours contains a large brain under all that hair. You haven't forgotten what we've taught you."

"But Dean," he began to plead.

His resistance stopped the instant his brother put a firm hand on his shoulder and looked him square in the eye. It was the same look he used to offer back in Chicago when Sam worried the social workers were going to separate them into different homes. Each time, the confidence in his brother's voice and determination in his eyes eased Sam's fears. Nearly six years separated from those moments had not dulled its power or influence.

"Trust me," Dean said firmly. "Nothing bad's gonna happen to you, Sammy. I won't let it. I'll be right behind you the whole time."

Both turned their heads inquisitively and watched as Tommy climbed out of the car. Sam took several cautious steps toward his friend then jumped back as he retched and fell to his knees, leaving a large and pungent puddle in the snowy salvage yard. When Tommy finished his Technicolor yawn, he heaved himself to his feet using the car for support. He dragged a hand across his mouth then looked bleary-eyed at Sam as a dull smile began to tug on his lips.

"Hey, Sam," Tommy grinned. "Did you hear what I heard?"

"Yeah, and it was gross," Sam grimaced.

"No, I mean what your brother said into me," Tommy giggled as his grin grew wider. "Dean called me _Dude_. He _duded_ me, Sam. How cool is that?"

He slapped Sam's shoulder roughly then stumbled to the front passenger door, falling into the seat still chuckling proudly. Sam sighed with relief then offered his brother a shrug.

"Tommy's going to repeat whatever story you tell him to," he reported. "He's… kind of a fan."

"Of what?" Dean asked.

"Of you," Sam said and felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. "He's always thought you were cool."

"Cool?" Dean repeated and scoffed. "I'm not cool. Cool is a word for self-important douchebags. I'm badass. They're totally different."

"Well, whatever," Sam shrugged. "He'll repeat whatever you tell him. Maybe he doesn't recall what actually happened tonight, but I can't see how."

"I can," Dean replied. "Folks tell themselves all sorts of crap to make this stuff make sense, but I think you're right. We can't drop him at home just yet. New plan. Drive to the diner. It's just 3 blocks from Tommy's house. Leave his car in their parking lot for the night. He can claim it wouldn't start again after you guys went there to eat. He'll be sobered up enough to go home by the time we dump him at his house after we eat."

"I get leaving the car there to buy time, but why are we going into the diner at all?" Sam asked. "Why don't we just stay here?"

"Because I'm hungry," Dean said as though that answer should have been obvious. "Also, we need alibis. That means we need to be seen by someone generally trustworthy who'll also swear to anyone who asks that we were in a public place for most of the night."

"But we weren't," Sam pleaded.

"It's called lying, Sam," Dean groaned. "Don't worry. Leave it to the adults and professionals."

Sam scoffed and shook flakes from his hair as they began collecting on his crown. He dug his hands deeply into his pockets as his hands began to shake. Whether it was from the cold, fear, frustrations, or a combination of the three he did not know.

"You're trying to fix things," Sam noted.

"I'm mostly trying to keep us out of jail for arson, but you've got the Cliff Notes idea," Dean replied testily.

"I get that, but I mean," Sam sighed, "do you know how to fix something like this?"

"Yeah," Dean bobbed his head. "I even know someone believable who will lie to the police for us with no questions asked." Sam narrowed his eyes with a question and received a confident smirk and an impish shrug. "Trust me. I've got a way with women, Sammy."

**-oOoOoOo-**

Dean's prediction proved accurate. They arrived at the diner (with Sam's hands trembling and his knuckles white from gripping the wheel so tightly) and took their seats just 10 minutes before a sheriff's deputy entered. It was one of the younger, gung-ho deputies—someone hired by the new sheriff after a purge of the corps of men previously employed by Chuck's father. This one was a woman—the one most likely to ticket a driver and show up in court to make sure the judge didn't throw it out. Deputy Jody Mills eyed the boys and left her gaze on them until Margie barked at her, using the kind of language and tone that was not going to get her a tip. The crusty waitress let it be known, without even speaking to Dean, that she didn't want cops in her joint that night when there were drunks to arrest and on the roads. She tossed in that the boys had been keeping her company most of the night, and she'd prefer it if the law wouldn't interrupt her attempts to feed them a good meal so they'd shovel out her car before they left for the night. Mills snorted and left without a backward glance. Margery swung by the table to refill Dean's coffee mug as the deputy left. She huffed and muttered "I fucking hate cops" as she sauntered away, which prompted Dean to smile then wink knowingly at his brother.

After that, Sam finally relaxed. The boys got Tommy speaking, amending his recollection of the evening to include him slipping on the ice and bumping his head on the car bumper when he stooped to grab the keys he dropped. Sam didn't like lying to his friend or manipulating him, but he understood Dean's directive. It was imperative that they get Tommy telling a plausible story for two reasons: The truth would land one or all of them in jail, and talking about ghosts would get Tommy locked up in a psych ward.

Tommy eventually reiterated the story, choosing to focus on Dean calling him "dude" a bit more than Sam thought necessary or impressive. Dean left the two high schoolers to finish their meal as he went to pay their bill (and, Sam suspected, to flirt with Margie to try and get some of the total check lowered). As they watched him leaned on the counter and get Margie laughing, Tommy sighed and shook his head.

"You know, when we were in grade school, I thought your brother was a superhero," he admitted.

"Well, he's not," Sam said, leering of Tommy waffling on his tale for the night, but starting to think along those lines himself after what he'd seen that night. "He's… just Dean."

"I know that and don't think that anymore," Tommy continued. "Now, I just want to be him when I'm an adult. Dean can take care of anything—like cars and the fact we didn't have money to buy food. He can talk to girls like it's easy. I know you don't like him anymore, but I think you're nuts not to. Sam, he's freakin' awesome."

Sam snorted and although he felt obligated to mutter the perfunctory 'he seems to think so' response he'd been giving all year previously, he knew the words would taste stale in his mouth.

"I already know that," Sam admitted.

He knew Tommy's praise was accurate. His brother was awesome—in the truest sense of the word rather than in the dewy-eyed, childish and mildly inebriated way Tommy meant it.

Dean left Sam astounded and filled with wonder so often in their lives (and most of it was in a good way), yet that was also the reason Sam's anger with Dean cut so deeply. There really was nothing that Dean couldn't do, but Dean just never seemed to believe it and sabotaged any chance for others to see what he could accomplish. Just that night, he had fought a ghost (two actually, if Sam followed the explanation correctly) and an hour later he was nonchalantly chatting up a middle aged waitress to avoid paying the bill for their comfort feast, and he was managing it like that was a regular night for him. It truly worried Sam to think there was possibility that this evening was in fact normal for Dean nowadays.

The marks on his body, the strange tattoo, the bag of various weapons all added up to give Sam a dark and depressing view of what constituted average and everyday activities for his older brother now that he was no longer at home.

**-oOoOoOo-**

**A/N:** Not done quite yet. More to come.


	8. Chapter 8

**-oOoOoOo-**

After dropping Tommy off in his driveway, the Winchesters started for home. In good weather, the drive would take about 15 minutes from the center of town. Sam snuck a glance at his watch and figured that even taking double that time would still get him home before his curfew. Not that he was too worried. His parents might have begun to feel nervous with him not being home before the stated hour, but the road conditions would give them a plausible reason to expect a delay. Considering the turmoil at Tommy's house, they might also hold off an extra few minutes before calling the Reese home to see if they knew where Tommy and Sam were. Of course, that would surely be after Papa Winchester called all the tow truck guys he knew in Sioux Falls and the Sheriff's Department checking on whether there were any accidents involving teenagers.

His ace in the hole, however, if he did miss his appointed return time was his driver. Dean had no stated curfew and rolling in with his older brother would smooth any ruffled feathers. His father might lecture them both in the morning, but it was their mother who would be the first to forgive. For all the grumbling he did about her running a spy network in town to know her sons' every move, Dean was her weakness. Sam knew it was due in large part over her guilt about missing so much of their lives and the responsibility that thrust on Dean's shoulders. There was also something in Dean's imp meets rake meets fake loner façade his brother long ago perfected that was her kryptonite. It was her worry that Sam wanted to ease most swiftly. Whatever worse-case scenario that might be budding in her thoughts as she stared into the snowy night waiting to see headlights on their driveway would vanish the moment she saw her oldest doing what he had done for so much of his life: taking care of his little brother.

That thought brought broody bumps to Sam's forehead as they crept along the slippery road away from the traffic lights of Main Street. He sighed and cut a glance at Dean, who hummed along with some song on the radio that was population a decade before he was born. Dean sat with his eyes focused on the snowy track stretching in from of them, but otherwise relaxed in his preferred spot behind the wheel of his beloved muscle car. Considering he had been attacked by otherworldly forces, vanquished an evil spirit, said goodbye to his high school girlfriend, been shot with rock salt by his brother, and set fire to a historic home, he seemed oddly calm.

"How often do you do… this stuff?" Sam asked quietly. "I mean, like you did earlier. I'm still shaking a little bit from it, but you look like… Well, you look like it was no big deal."

"We aren't going to talk about it," Dean answered. "Ever. Got that?"

"So that means you do it fairly often," Sam surmised. "Do you always save people?"

Dean clenched his teeth and gripped the wheel tighter. Sam's persistence was one of his greatest traits. Nothing ever got him down or confused him for long simply because he would not stand for it. He figured things out. His restlessness and relentlessness got him answers. Holding out on him was never Dean's strong suit. He could only accomplish it if there was one factor in play: Sam's safety. Considering Sam's curiosity and where that might lead, he knew a protectionist stance was not just wise but also required. That meant minimal answers to curb the questions without sparking new ones.

"Save people?" Dean sighed. "Not often enough."

"Is this kind of thing why you went back to school so early last summer?" he persisted. "I mean, did you actually go back to school for a class? Or did you spend the summer doing… this? What do you even call what you did tonight?"

Dean sighed more forcefully, showing just enough building frustration to keep his little brother from an all-out interrogation. It was devious and manipulative to use that kind of tactic on Sam, but the kid had their mother's disappointed bitchface in his bag of tricks along with the innocent puppy eyes that usually made Dean feel guilty as hell and could make his resolve crumble if it caught him at the right moment. While keeping the car moving along and out of the ditch, he briefly cut his eyes to the side and skewer his brother with an intense gaze.

"It's called hunting," Dean replied. "It's not for you, Sam. It's not for anyone with a stable, safe, bright future. Guys like me do hunt so that people like you don't have to even know about it. So, drop it. I mean it. Never mention this again—not to me, not to anyone. Ever."

Sam huffed and frowned. He was bubbling over with questions and worries. He also was just flat out curious. Dean usually told him anything he asked about—even when it was stuff their parents likely didn't want Sam to know (like what Dean actually did on Prom Night his senior year, how to pick a lock, how to shoot pool, how to knock someone out from a simple tap on the back of the head). He didn't like the idea that Dean kept this secret hobby (or was it a calling? a death wish maybe?) from his little brother, and he was showing no signs of changing his mind about it.

"Fine," Sam relented. "I guess I'll just have to see what I can find in books and whatever on my own."

The comment had the desired effect. Dean scoffed and slapped his hand angrily on the wheel then hit the brakes. The car skidding slightly but due to the low speed did not veer off the road. Instead, Dean pulled up on the side and threw the car into park. He as he turned to glare at his brother, he worked his jaw and his neck corded with the strain of not shouting or reaching across the seat to smack him.

"Father Reardon got me into it," Dean said tensely. "He was like a commando for the Vatican—just with the holy water and Latin spells rather than a K-bar and M-16 to do the job. He taught me things because he decided I should know them. When bad things happen and there are signs that it's not natural, I look into them for him. There's crap that hides in the shadows and some that can do it in plain sight. It's all evil. It all needs to die and the VP of the Latin Club isn't the guy to do that. Got it? It's not for you—any of it. So, that's it. That's all I'm telling you. You can't tell anyone about what you saw or heard tonight, and you can't go looking for more information. This stuff is dangerous and it'll get you and our parents killed if you mess around with it."

Dean sharpened his voice and stare at the end. He knew it was a bold and egregious lie to throw his parents into the mix. They were not innocent in this, not by far. His father was a bystander who jumped into the fray when he found he had no choice, but their mother… Dean was finding it hard to be around her and act like he didn't know what he knew about her. He was certain she had done a lot of good in her time as hunter. What he found hard to swallow was that someone raised in the life as she was had made the unforgiveable mistake of thinking she could leave it behind. Evil came after her family and she had done nothing to prevent it because she'd convinced herself she could retire with no strings attached. Worse still, she had left it behind and had a family, thus placing them in danger by not sharing what she knew about the shadows. He adored her, but his disappointment with her made being around her and playing the role of "ignorant, civilian Dean" almost too much to bear. Moodiness with a bend toward wanting to spend time alone in his room along with excuses to head back to school early were all that was getting him through the holiday at home without confronting her with what he knew.

"Really? Hunting ghosts is dangerous?" Sam remarked flatly. "I think I figured that out when I got thrown across a room by one tonight. Um, so, that's why you got all those bruises and cuts? From fighting ghosts?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow and opted not to wonder how his brother knew of his injuries. Instead, he just nodded. Sam didn't need to know that there were more than just ghosts. Monsters and demons could remain a secret.

"Can you promise me something?" Sam asked.

"That we won't get caught over what happened tonight?" Dean guessed. "No, I can't, but you don't need to worry. If someone does try to pin the fire on us, I'll take the heat for that. You'll skate, so will Tommy if it comes to that. That I can guarantee you."

Sam sighed as he heard the determination and sincerity in his brother's voice. While it was nice knowing that Dean had his back, it was frustrating that to do that meant throwing himself under the bus. It was overbearing and insulting and reeked of martyrdom. In short, it was quintessential Dean. It was also not what Sam was seeking as an assurance.

"No, that's not what I meant," he continued. "I want you to promise me you won't quit school just to do this."

Sam saw Dean's jaw harden as he shook his head and put the car back into gear. The tires spun briefly but they began moving forward again.

"I know school is hard for you," Sam continued, "but it's supposed to be hard—and you've always been able to do what's hard. You're nearly half done, Dean. You can finish. I know you can. Look, if you can fight ghosts and win, you can get through a couple more semesters of lectures and tests. I can't imagine this hunting stuff pays well. I mean, it's obviously kind of illegal what you have to do. You need to have something else to sustain yourself—another career as well. Besides, it's dangerous. You could get hurt. Look, someday, you're gonna meet a girl you want to stay with for more than a week, and you'll want to have a normal life and a family with her. So you'll need a job that gives you better odds of coming home in one piece each night and not getting arrested."

Dean sighed. The life Sam described was one specifically off limits to Dean so he never gave any consideration to it. There was no point in even fantasizing about it. When he and Sam were kids, Dean wouldn't let himself think about having a real home or family; his only concern was getting those things for his little brother. Now, with their parents taking care of the kid and Sam's life stable and his school career filling up with awards, Dean knew his job with the kid was done. He'd accomplished the only thing in life he knew he must do: Protect Sam. Now, Sam was secure in every way he needed and was well on his way to being able to take care of himself in nearly any situation in which he might find himself on his way to Harvard or Princeton or whatever egghead school offered him a free ride for his grades. Realizing Dean would never see how far his little brother would actually make it left the elder brother cold. The color drained from his face as he shook his head and stared darkly toward the window into the snowy night. Lying to Sam about what his own future held was the smart thing, but Sam knew him too well for him to pull it off, so he gave him honesty—a bit of it anyway.

"I can't make you that promise, Sammy," Dean confessed. "School is your thing, not mine. You'll go off to college in a couple years and be tops in your class where you'll get a pile of degrees. Me? I'm just a grunt. I don't know how I got accepted at Notre Dame any more than anyone else does. I guess they've got an affirmative action program for screw ups and morons. This whole school and degree thing, it's not for me. I'm just smart enough to do what I need to do to get by in a classroom most days, and that's not really enough reason to stay. Besides, this other thing is important. Regular people need help when this rotten stuff happens to them. Taking care of it is something guys like me can do. School wastes the time I've got to do it."

Sam's mouth wrinkled, and he shook his head vehemently.

"You're not dumb, Dean, and doing this could get you killed," he said in a shaky voice.

Dean merely tilted his head to the side rather than offer a firm answer. Sam's frown deepened and he breathed furiously out of his nose.

"If you won't finish school because you don't think you're worthy of a better life, then do it for me," Sam argued. "Dean, I think it's great—heroic even—that you help people, but you could get killed. You're important to Mom and Dad and Bobby, not to mention me. After we got kidnapped Mom and Dad learned how to live without you, but I've never learned that lesson. I was barely was able to handle not talking to you for the last seven months. Don't do that to me again. You always swore to me that you'd never leave me so I'm holding you to that."

Dean sighed and looked away as he saw a glisten of tears in Sam's eyes and heard the hint of a crack in his voice. His brother's fear for him stabbed at him and made his own throat tighten. The pang of guilt in his chest grew to a cascading pain that nearly stole his breath and made his voice rasp when he spoke.

"We all have to die sometime, Sammy," he offered then heard an angry scoff from his brother. "I'm not looking for it to happen to me right now, okay? But if I don't do this, if I don't help people, then good people with families and futures will die. I can't let that happen. I've gotta do what I can while I can to make something of my life while I've got the chance."

"You say that like your life isn't worth something now!" Sam argued. "Dean, your life isn't less important than the life of anyone you save. Your life already matters, and not just because you do this hunting thing. I think it's great you want to help people. It's who you are, I get that. It's who you've been practically your whole life. You're brave like friggin' Greek hero, but that doesn't have to make your life a tragedy. You're not just a weapon to save other people. You're not a grunt. You're my brother, and you get to be happy and have a life, too. I mean, just for the very fact that you do this other stuff, you've got even more of a right to that than the strangers you save."

"It doesn't work like that," Dean shook his head as he felt his face redden.

"Says who?" Sam persisted. "Maybe that's the way it seems, but what says it has to be like that? I wish you could, just for once, see yourself the way I see you. I wish you believed that you're worth more than this resignation you have about yourself. Dean, what did you ever do that made you think you're worth less than me?"

Dean struggled to find his voice and speak in an even tone as he turned the car toward Bensen Road, using the force and wishful thinking as much as his eyes to find the road as the storm left little in the way of obvious signs for the location of pavement versus ditches.

"Because I've got debts to pay, Sammy, the universal kind," he answered quietly as his mind flashed back to the moment he knew his life received a black mark against his worth. "It started when I didn't scream. The guy who took us was there in my room, holding you as you were crying, and all I had to do was yell for help. Easiest thing in the world to do, but I did what I do best: I screwed it up. Any other time, I'd screamed to Mom about you drooling on my toy truck, about having to take nap, about not getting the crust cut off my toast. Whatever. But when it really mattered, when you were in trouble and needed help, I froze. Sam, we got taken from home and ended up in those crap places for 10 friggin' years because of me. It was kind of the start of a pattern. I screw things up and other people pay the price. By doing this, hunting, I'm just doing some good finally. People are getting hurt by stuff they can't understand and I'm one of the guys there to help."

Sam gaped and shook his head. More than a decade of guilt and shame radiated in his brother's green eyes. The secret he held so closely and that cut such horrific grooves in his confidence, his self-worthy, and his heart were vivid and shocking.

"That's insane," Sam said. "Dean, we were both victims of kidnapping. You were just a little kid. It wasn't your job to save me."

Sam sighed and buried his face in his hands. His brother wasn't someone who accepted hugs easily or often, yet Sam seeing the guilt and resignation on his brother's face in the faint glow of the headlights reflecting on the snow, he had never had such a strong urge to wrap his arms around Dean and try to pull all the fragmented pieces back together. Yet, he knew there wasn't enough superglue in the universe to stick those broken pieces of Dean Winchester back together again.

"Dean, I think you're really smart in a lot of ways, but you're so completely wrong about what's your fault," Sam said eventually. "Your only job that night was to survive, and you did it. You did more than that actually. You protected me. You took care of me. You don't remember how we ended up at that fire station. So, for all we know, you escaped from the kidnapper and brought me with you to safety. The only hard facts we have are that you managed to hold onto me and then spent the next decade taking care of me while no one did that for you. You've spent most of your life taking care of me, and it just now hit me that it's never once occurred to you to give yourself the same chances you gave me. You can protect yourself, too, Dean. You don't always have to take the hit for someone else. You don't always have to step in front of the trouble. You don't always have to be the savior."

Dean scoffed and grumbled about feeling like he was in a tampon commercial or at a recruiting rally for the girl-power groups that the liberal chicks at the college (the ones who shaved their heads but not their armpits) held every once in a while. Sam shook his head and refused to be dissuaded.

"You can look out for yourself and see that you get good opportunities as well" Sam continued. "In case you hadn't noticed yet, I'm not some whimpy, needy kid anymore. I don't think of you as being someone who needs help, but I know there are times when everyone—no matter how strong they are—needs a hand. No, don't shake your head at me. I want good things for you, Dean. Why wouldn't I? You're my big brother. I want you to be happy and successful at whatever it is that you want to do in your life. Trust me, for everything you think is so awful about you, I can name at least 10 more that are spectacular and amazing. Dean, you've more than earned the right to be happy and at peace. Anyone who says differently can to answer to me."

Sam's eyes were hard and determined in a way that let Dean know the kid would argue (and perhaps even hit) anyone who disagreed with him. Dean smirked slightly with pride, but his smile grin faded as he shook his head. Explaining that he locked lips with the epitome of evil and sold what he now knew was his most precious possession (his soul) for what Father Reardon insisted was a selfish reason (keeping his mother alive) would only make Dean feel worse. Knowing Sam was fiercely proud of him felt good. Ruining that by letting his brother know of the colossal blunder Dean made would be a pain he would rather avoid. Still, seeing Sam looking at him like he was somehow heroic also made Dean feel miserable because he knew he didn't deserve it.

"I'm grateful for everything you did tonight and everything you did for me when we were younger," Sam continued, "but I'll feel even better if you'd cut yourself a break and live your life for you now. It's great you want to help and protect people, but you need to take care of yourself now. You need to start making choices about what was best for you, Dean."

Dean scoffed and settled back in the booth as he rolled his eyes.

"Are you practicing to be Dad?" he asked. "You know to pull it off properly, you'll have to drop your voice a lot more. Of course, to do that you'll have to wait until your testicles descend. Or are you trying to be Mom? In that case, hold those little boys in a bit longer."

Sam huffed and blew his bangs out of his face but his expression remained stony as he refused to let the jab take him off course.

"You've got your whole life to do whatever you want," Sam said. "Don't tell me you can't make it through school because I don't believe you. You're too smart to quit."

"You're too smart to believe that crap Mom, Dad, and Bobby shovel at me," he said. "At my best, I'm the king of the C+ average, Sam, and sometimes even that is a stretch."

"That's a load of crap," Sam said in an angry but quiet voice. "You're as smart as anyone I know when you put your mind to it. I know the real you, the one just about no one never sees because you hide it so well."

Dean shook his head as they made tracks in the road as they passed the sign for Bobby's salvage yard. The high piles of wrecked cars loomed like snow covered mountains through the curtain of snow. Dean's lack of response and agreement only infuriated Sam. He spoke in a controlled but harsh voice just a shade above a whisper.

"I do know you," the younger Winchester asserted. "I've been looking up to you my whole life. You know why?"

"Because you were way shorter than me until recently," Dean replied.

"Because I always wanted to be like you—the real you," Sam said. "I don't mean the smart Alec who gets in trouble to get out of doing things or the sarcastic jerk who says things so he can convince people he's a problem they'd be better off not knowing. I mean the guy who gave me a ride to school on his bike everyday rain or shine so I didn't have to take the bus where he couldn't watch out for me, the guy who didn't bother to make friends with kids his own age so that he'd be around to get me home from school and see that no one bothered me while I did my homework, the guy who made sure I ate first whenever we were hungry in the orphanage and who will do just about anything for people he cares about, the guy who can solve any problem he encounters and who never thinks of himself first and who is braver than anyone I've ever known."

He paused in his heated but hush soliloquy. He thought he saw the hint of a tear raced down Dean's cheek and heard the faint clearing of his throat as Dean smothered his reaction under a well-practice cough. Sam felt a twist in his chest as he realized he'd never seen Dean look so fragile and the verge of breaking.

"I'm good at tests and writing papers and doing research," Sam explained. "That's what school wants me to do, but that's not what learning is about. It's supposed to be about finding a way to use what you know and do something with it. I couldn't tell you any practical use for the history of the British Parliament from the 1700s or the importance of sugar cane to our diplomatic relations between the US and France in the 19th century. I'm not even sure if there is any importance to it anymore, but I can ace a test about it. I know all sorts of academic stuff that looks great on a college application, but do you know what I don't know?"

"How to take off a girl's bra?" Dean guessed slipping his mask back into place as he controlled his voice.

Sam halted and blushed as both a confession and in frustration. Dean sighed and shook his head in disappointment.

"I know more than you think," Sam countered. "What I meant was that I don't know how to use most of the facts I've learned in class or my text books for anything other than passing a test."

"Well, if you're looking for practical advice," Dean offered, "spend more time in the back seat of a car with your poetry partner from English class than sitting alone with your nose in a book at the library. I promise, whatever you've read about bra clasps that baffles you will make more sense once you actually touch one… the clasp that is. I'll hold off on the spoiler alerts so you can discover the wonder of what's inside the bra all on your own."

Sam seethed hotly but allowed his brother his chuckle because he was not going to be pushed off the subject until he'd had his say.

"I'm talking about a practical application of classroom lessons in the real world situations, Dean," Sam insisted. "You're really good at that. You use what you learned in a physics class to put rock salt into shotgun shells to repel a ghost. You learned that fire gets rid of ghosts, and you saved our lives tonight with that. There's a word for people like you."

"Yeah, criminals," Dean nodded as Sam scoffed. "Okay, since I don't technically have an adult record yet: average everyday loser is a little more accurate."

"The word is genius, Dean," Sam countered. "You're too smart and too tough to quit just because things are a little rough or because you're scared of failing. That's not who you are. When you were a little boy, you took care of me, and you never once quit. There's no way going to college is scarier than being taken from your bed as a toddler by a stranger then waking up in a strange place without knowing how you got there or where your parents are."

Dean sighed heavily as they arrived at their own driveway and began inching toward the house. As the car glided into its parking space beside their father's 1967 Impala, now half buried in snow, Dean shook his head, but his brother would have none of the refusal.

"You're the one who taught me to walk and how to dress myself," Sam persisted. "You taught me read and write before I started school. You kept me safe and protected me from everything that could hurt me. You looked after me the way a parent should have. It hurts me when I think how no one did that for you until Dad found us in Chicago. I know I'm not old enough to go to school with you and be the person who is right there watching out for you and cheering you on, but I want to be. I hope you know that."

His eyes grew glasses as his voice trembled. For all they had done and seen that night, it was the look on Dean's face that chilled Sam most profoundly. Dean regarded him with an expression Sam could only describe as vulnerable.

"I know things have been strange between us, bad even, for a while now," Sam continued. "I said some stuff that was pretty crappy."

"Yeah, well, I've haven't exactly been a ray of sunshine either," Dean agreed.

"I was mad that you left for school and didn't seem to miss me or want to know what was going on in my life," Sam admitted. "It felt like you outgrew me."

"I didn't want to be a drag on you, Sammy," Dean confessed. "I heard all about codependency and toxic attachments in a stupid psych course. You're gonna be successful at whatever you do when you're grown up, Sam. You don't need me hanging around and dragging you down. My life is a sea that is just one wave of crap after another. I came home last summer and saw you were doing well without me sticking my nose in and always watching over your shoulder. I figured you had outgrown me. Even before you said it, it was obvious you didn't need me. You were better than me, stronger than me like that. I didn't like it, but I was proud because I always knew you would be. So, leaving you alone seemed like the best thing I could do for you and that's always been my job: Take care of Sammy."

"It was your mission not your job," Sam corrected. "You didn't have to ever do that. I'm glad you did, but you're wrong about what you think now, Dean. I didn't like that you were gone. I mean, I don't need you protecting me from everything anymore. I'm grown up and can take care of myself—you taught me how to do that. And, in case it slipped your mind, we do have Mom, Dad, and Uncle Bobby looking out for us—both of us."

Dean rolled his eyes and climbed out of the car just as the front door opened and light spilled out from the living room. The recognizable and expected silhouette of their mother filled the doorway. Dean looked toward her and felt that diametric pull of gratefulness at seeing her and anger at her secrets. He was glad the night and the snow obscured whatever expression had race across this face. Before he could ponder that, a rumbling voice boomed from the house.

"Does one of you want to explain why neither of you called and to tell us you were together and would be late?" John asked in a voice that let them know no excuse would suffice and all answers would be wrong. Guilt was established and punishment was on the horizon.

"That's my fault," Sam said swiftly, hearing the anger in his father's voice that was only tempered with his relief that both were home and well. Dean had offered to take the hit if they got charged with arson in the future; the younger Winchester figured the least he could do was save his older brother a lecture from their father. "Tommy and I were at the diner, and he had car trouble. Dean helped us and so I got a ride home from him."

Dean looked at his younger brother, impressed at his ability to lie by telling the truth. Grasshopper was learning—fast. Rather than disagree or add to the story, Dean merely shrugged and nodded as he spied his mother sigh with relief and the worry lines around her eyes smooth out significantly as she smiled.

"You still should have called," she scolded, but her voice was warm and forgiving as she opened the door wide for them to enter.

"Well, it's just barely 11 now," Sam said. "Technically, that means I was home before 11 was since we were already in the driveway at that time you gave me as a curfew."

Dean groaned and shuffled through the snow toward the door. He shrugged at his parents as he entered and shook flakes from his hair. Sam was close on his heels, still explaining how he had not missed his curfew in the most elementary sense.

"That's your defense?" John asked as both boys stepped into the welcoming heat and light of the house. "You're hanging your hat on a technicality?"

"He'll probably grow up to be a lawyer," Dean chided. "Sorry about that, Dad. Guess you'll be the only one with a respectable job in the family."

John offered him a hard look. Dean already suspected his father was on the verge of ordering him to quit school as he obviously wary of Dean's dedication to his education while racking up considerable student loans. Although Bobby was currently absent, Dean wasn't sure how each of the adults closest in his life each didn't suspect that hunting was at the root of his intermittent contact and aloof behavior. Denial (something else he learned in that wretched psych class) seemed a likely reason.

"Did you have a good time?" Mary asked, brushing snow from Sam's shoulders as he shrugged out of his coat.

"I guess," Sam said innocently. "I mean, Dean called Tommy 'dude' and Tommy basically fell on the ground to supplicate in front of him like he's a god."

"Supplicating?" John rumbled.

"He means the whole face to the ground with arms outstretched thing," Dean offered with a confident nod, drawing his father's lifted eyebrow. "I used think that was called bowing, but Father Reardon is a bastard about vocabulary."

"Well, Tommy's pending supplication aside," Sam smirked, "I've been telling Dean that I'm already planning the sign I'll be holding up at his graduation. It's gonna be huge and covered in glitter so he'll be able to see it from half a mile away easily."

Dean looked down and kept his expression unreadable. Sam noted the reaction but kept his expression hopeful. It always amazed him that for someone as strong and tough as Dean, it could take such little things to make him nearly break. Compassion, affection, and pride were three such weapons. Sam froze as he started at Dean hoping that when he did look out that he would not see doubt on Dean's face—doubt in himself or doubt in Sam's faith in him.

Dean eventually lifted his chin and stared at his brother as a dry lump welled in his throat. There was an earnestness in Sam's words, expression, and hopefulness wrenched at Dean's heart. In the long run, he knew was going to disappoint the kid. Graduation or not, Dean knew he wasn't going to amount to anything more than a bloody stain on the ground after his corpse was shredded by a hellhound. Sam would be 22 when that happened—just graduated from college himself and off on whatever other schooling or exciting job enticed him. _At least it'll be after his graduation_, Dean reasoned. _The kid can enjoy his day in the stupid robe and funny hat. I'll make sure I'm there to see it. That'll be a good memory to have as one of my last._

"I think the glitter bit is Sam's way of letting you know he wants to join the cheerleading squad in an effort to get a varsity letter," Dean muttered to his father. "Maybe you should talk to him. If he keeps talking like that, he'll get a job with Hallmark or start menstruating."

John grunted as Sam scowled then rolled his eyes. Mary smiled and lovingly pet her youngest son's cheek to sooth him from the ribbing.

"Well, if you're not going to ground Samantha, he's gonna hit the kitchen," Dean announced then jutted his chin forward in an order. "He's got to get the popcorn made before 11:30."

"Popcorn?" John questioned as Sam instantly started toward the kitchen without objecting or waiting to get a counter order from his parents.

"Yeah, for the movie," Dean replied. "Channel 13. Movies with a Bang Marathon. Don't let the name fool you. It's not porn. It's their New Year's movies that blow crap up marathon. _Die Hard_ starts at 11:30. So, Chop chop, Mr. V.P. of the Latin Club. Hey, I want extra butter so don't be skimping."

Sam nodded dutifully from the kitchen. Dean grinned and nodded, pleased his order was followed.

"You're watching movies for the rest of the night?" Mary asked.

"Don't worry, we'll watch in my room," Dean replied. "I know the noise from the TV down here sounds like it's blaring in your room."

"Well, what if we wanted to join you for this," Mary asked. "Your room isn't big enough for all of us."

"Dad hates _Die Hard_," Dean answered.

"Maybe I don't," she said hopefully.

Dean froze his face. Her years of lies, for whatever reason, assailed him. He knew she did what she thought was right, but intentions paved that deadly highway to where he was going. For as much as he resembled his father, for as much as he tried to emulate the man and how much he revered him, he was her son where it was most dangerous. He had done something terrible for what he considered a virtuous reason (screw Reardon's twisted opinion on it). The difference between his mother's choices and his own, Dean knew his would end with just one victim: himself. He knew some of the resentment he felt was actually just fear for what he faced in the coming years. Accepting that, he knew, was what he needed to do. Holding any anger toward her was pointless. It wouldn't be easy to flip that switch, but he was a fake it 'til you make it kind of guy (his entire academic career was based on that philosophy). He forced a challenging smirk onto his face.

"Mom," Dean chided as he shook his head, "you're a girl. You know the rules. No girls in the Bat Cave."

He grinned impishly, repeating for her a memory he did not independently hold but one she had related to him many times about something he said as a toddler when forcing his baby brother to play with him. There were not many memories like that due to their abduction so Dean usually stayed away from them, but that was one which always seemed to make his mother smile.

"It's the late '90s, sweetie," she smiled back. "Equality for all."

"Not for superheroes," he shook his head.

"What about Wonder Woman?"

Dean scoffed.

"Hey, Dad may like the visual of you parading around in a bustier and knee boots while carrying a rope to tie him up, but I don't," he groaned as he ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. John's gruff clearing of his throat acted as an adequate scolding to alter the course of Dean's objection. "And my point is that, by the very virtue of Batman being a superhero, it means he's not equal. He's above equal. He's… He's…." He paused snapped his fingers as he shouted toward the kitchen. "Sammy, give me a big geek explanation here. What is Batman?"

"Uh, he's really close to getting grounded," Sam replied as he stuck his head into the living room. "Which is sad because you're nearly 20 and acting like 10-year-old."

"Bitch," Dean growled.

"I'll try real hard not to sneeze on your popcorn, Jerk," Sam rolled his eyes as he returned to his fetching duties.

John sighed and put his arm around his wife's shoulders and turned her toward the stairway.

"Good that you two are getting along again," John noted as he guided his wife toward the stairs. "I've been sick of your squabbling for days. Go watch your movie. Don't stay up until dawn, and no reenacting any fight scenes. I need my beauty sleep."

"That you do," Dean muttered but offered a guilty smile as he felt his father's flat, unamused stare fall heavily on him. "Sweet dreams, sir."

"The front steps and path to the driveway get shoveled before breakfast tomorrow, Dean," his father ordered as he climbed the stairs.

"That's for the Wonder Woman comment?" Dean asked.

"No, that's for lying by telling us you hadn't picked a major," his father replied. "I happen to like your Wonder Woman suggestion."

That Mary giggled in that instant made Dean cringe then mimic a retching motion. His father's rumbling laugh that followed was icing on the willies cake making Dean gag.

**-oOoOoOo-**

**_A/N:_** Up next, the end…


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N:**_ Thanks for sticking through until the end of this one.

**-oOoOoOo-**

Dean didn't recall the moving ending. He just suddenly became aware that his room was exceedingly still, like during a power outage. The silence pressed in on his ears and prompted his closed lids to fly open.

He expected to find pitch blackness and aloneness, but instead a soft glow filled the room. The TV continued to flicker as an infomercial for Miss Cleo's fortune telling skills aired; however, her words were muted as was Sam's expected snoring. In front of Dean's bed, at the center of the shimmering light, sat a man he knew as James Smith—the family's former landlord and an obnoxious blowhard Dean thought was either a world-class dick or chemically castrated pervert.

"Dino, we gotta rap, buddy," James Smith/the archangel Gabriel grinned.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" Dean barked.

He whipped his legs to the floor as he sat up blinking rapidly. He cast his eyes to his brother he remained snoozing on the floor in chair beside the bed. He did not stir prompting Dean's heart to begin thumping with the early stages of panic.

"Oh, pish-posh with the whispering," Gabriel scoffed. "He's fine. Look, no one else can hear us because I'm not here in this room. Not really. I'm in your melon. Squirming around in your custard, if you will, and I gotta say I'm a little disappointed. There's a lot less porn in here than I expected. I mean, it's not void of the art, but what's here is pretty pedestrian and predictable."

"How?" Dean demanded with his voice as cold and hard as ice.

"It's a tricky little spell, but I'm a tricky kind of guy," Gabriel winked.

"You're a monster," Dean said suddenly as he moved to put himself between the man and the sleeping form of his little brother. "Stay away from him."

"Whoa, you got me all wrong, Chief," he shook his head. "First off, teenage boys: not my thing. I'm no danger to your beloved Sammy. In fact, I'm the best friend he's ever had. I was kind of his fairy godmother there at the start. I arranged things so he didn't go to the masquerade ball and get his ass turned into a pumpkin."

Dean stared back in confusion as a scowl deepened on his face and an angry furrow appeared on his brow. In one swift movement, he thrust his hand under his pillow and whipped out the .45 that perpetually rested beneath his head each night since he took on the calling of hunting. He was not as versed in all monsters and their weaknesses as other hunters, but one thing he knew for certain was that creatures moved slower when they didn't have knee caps and a lot of things died when you pumped silver bullets into them. He released the safety as he leveled the weapon on the newcomer.

"Oh please," his visitor scoffed then waved his hand. "Go ahead. I just told you I'm not here. That gun's not real and even if it was, those bullets wouldn't even mess up my hair. Look, I'm not here to hurt you. So, calm down. Have a seat, and let's chat."

Another flick of a finger and Dean found himself shoved backward roughly onto the bed and pressed against the headboard. Despite the jolt it gave to the bed, Sam remained snoozing with his head lolled loosely to the side. His bangs flopped casually into his eyes. His feet remained comfortably propped up on the mattress as though nothing happened. Neither the movement nor the voices roused him.

"What did you do to him you freak?" Dean snarled as he felt invisible arms pressed him backward, restraining him.

"Nothing," came the reply followed by a snap of the fingers which produced a large leather recliner that was mathematically too big to fit into the small room but did so all the same as Dean's visitor hopped into it and released a sigh of relief as it began to vibrate. "There. This one's got the magic fingers. Oh yeah. That's better. Now, let's clear up a couple things. First off, you and I are not talking in what you know as the physical world, Einstein. I'm in you—just not in that way, you cheeky monkey. I'm just in your head."

He grinned but received only a stony stare in reply.

"Next, if by calling me monster you mean I'm devastatingly handsome superior being, then you got me," he continued. "My friends call me Loki, but my family calls me Gabriel."

Dean continued to struggle against his invisible bindings.

"How do you get Gabriel out of Loki?" he grunted.

"How do you solve a problem like Maria?" Gabriel smirked. "What came first, the chicken or the egg? Actually, that one's not a good example. I've got that answer. Oh wait. I've got all the answers—at least, all the ones you want. So are we clear on who, what, and where we all are."

"Sure, you're the dick who ruined my life, and as soon as I pull a Houdini, I'm gonna shiv your ass in the real world or here in fantasy land," Dean replied.

"Good luck with that," Gabriel scoffed as he crossed his ankles laced his fingers behind his head. "Dean, Dean, Dean. You have stepped in some seriously celestial doo-doo, my squirrelly little friend. I gotta give you credit though. You managed to be a total asshat outside of my radar—that's almost a little impressive. Of course, I blame myself for that to a point. I was too slick with all that tagging I gave you on your ribs. Nice scribbling, but I was too talented for my own good. So, I guess technically I outwitted by myself—not that I expect any less. What can I say, I'm good—in certain cultures, I'm a god."

"You're God?" Dean curled his lip in doubt and distrust.

Gabriel chuckled and shook his head.

"Not the big G-man," he said. "That is dear old Daddy-kins. No, I'm _**a**_ god. A minor deity. Or, that's what play when I'm on vacay with the ladies or when I'm out playing with the boys. I'm actually an angel—an Archangel in fact, one of 4. The best of the lot, in my humble opinion."

Dean nodded. He always felt a pit in his stomach anytime he was around the man. He wasn't sure precisely when he recalled who took him from his bed as a child in 1983. He'd been exposed to several forms of magic and any number of the scrambled his head a little bit, churning up buried stuff and showing him flashes of things that had not yet occurred or perhaps never would. One of the few things that was repeated for him each time was the brilliant glow of the man who snatched him and the sensation Dean felt at the man's presence. He felt it again as he sat trapped in his bedroom.

"So, here's the thing, I planned to just walk away and let you be you all along," Gabriel began. "That was my plan. I protected your little brother from a fate he didn't deserve, and we all got to have ice cream on Sunday. I hate to confess this but I gotta: I had a soft spot for him. It's a little brother to little brother thing, I guess. Also, he was small and helpless when I came to save him. I just couldn't leave him alone to fend for himself. You were the natural choice for nanny and grunt. After all, it's kind of why you existed in the first place."

Dean tore his eyes away and looked to the peaceful, sleeping form of his brother. It was hard to believe Sam had ever been so tiny he could be clutched fully in Dean's arms, yet the elder Winchester remembered clearly the first time he held his baby brother when their parents brought the infant home from the hospital. He also recalled the sense of urgency when he blinked and found himself alone with his brother in his arms on the steps of a firehouse so very far from his home. He barely remembered his first name. He couldn't recall his parents' names, their address, or anything about where he was from, but he knew his brother—knew his first name, his birthday, and what he liked to eat. Protect Sammy was the only thought in his head that made any sense that morning. It struck him profoundly how again that evening how in the Simpson house that call to arms yet again rang true.

"I know about your dust up tonight playing ghostbuster," Gabriel continued. "I've also recently been clued in on the rest of your extracurricular activities. You've done okay by human standards of keeping your real identity secret while playing supernatural road warrior, but that won't work with the opposition for much longer, _Jack Hawkins_."

"Who?"

"Your _non de guerre_, is surprising from you," Gabriel said, "I wasn't aware you liked the classics—but reclaiming your unofficial Dickensian moniker from Chicago, The Artful Dodger aka Jack Hawkins, is an obvious and desperate cry for Bobby Singer to bust you. Is that what you want?"

Dean shrugged. It wasn't an admission. It wasn't a denial. Pleading no contest, he learned long ago, worked best for him and offered the most wiggle room.

"So, you we're agreed you didn't learn Latin for your health," the angel said. "Oh wait. I guess you kind of did. But that's kind of my point for talking to you. Tick, tock, right? The way I hear it, you've got six years left."

Dean's jaw grew hard, and he looked down feeling the shame of his deal (the stupidity of it rather than the motivation for it). Someone smarter would have found a different way to swing that crossroads contract. In fact, the more often Dean thought of it, the more it seemed the 10 years of waiting were as much of a punishment as anything. Knowing his end was coming at him, marching relentlessly toward him, was a torture of its own.

"So what?" he grumbled. "I can do whatever I want with whatever time I've got. I know Father Reardon has plans for me."

"Yeah, and you're looking for an exit ramp off Frank Reardon's road trip for you," Gabriel ventured.

"Well, free will's an open road," Dean said gruffly. "That's how I roll."

"You doing the lone wolf thing—shocker," the angel scoffed. "A little advice for you: Don't walk away from the good father. Frankie always was a good egg. I taught him well how on to deal with Hell's Most Wanted on my Roman holiday back in the 70s. He's smart for a human just not very playful, and don't get me started on his sanctimonious streak. I mean, you wouldn't believe the judgmental attitude the guy dishes when he shows up unannounced and ruins a perfectly lovely weekend orgy with multiple sets of Norwegian twins."

Dean cocked his head to the side not sure he wanted the images of Reardon, Gabriel, and naked Norwegian girls frolicking in his mind (but he hoped he could eventually erase the impression of the two men and just enjoy the blond, matching pairs by himself someday—after all, with just six years left, he figured it was time to start writing and then checking things off a to-do list).

"Don't be snaking my girls," Gabriel warned as he spied the grin in Dean's eyes. "You've got bigger and darker fish to fry. I'd ask what the hell you were thinking when you used your soul as a credit card, but I get it. You wanted to save your mom. I never had one of those, and I think that's what messed up my family. I'm not sure what I would have done in your place. I do know what it's like to want to hang on to a parent who's leaving before you're ready to let them go. I feel for you, Dean. Honestly, I do, but there's not much I can do to help you."

"I didn't ask for help," he replied.

The angel gave him a scorching look that melted into one of pity as he sighed.

"No, you didn't," Gabriel agreed. "You've never prayed—ever. It's the most common and predictable (if useless) human response to adversity, but it never occurred to you to Heaven or any of its holy hosts for anything. Even when you found out from Frank Reardon that the heavenly-halo'ed Socs and the bottom-feeding hellish Greasers do exist, you never asked our harp strumming boy band of brothers to save your ass. Of course, you didn't need to. Frank asked for you."

Dean blinked. Reardon rode his ass with lectures and orders and extra homework that would have cut into Dean's actual study time (if he had done much of that in the first place). He figured the only reason the guy gave him the time of day was because Dean could exorcise the black-eyed murderers who had the good father on their hit list which kept the padre on the bench and trapped on the consecrated ground of the campus. Learning Reardon tried to pull heavenly strings for him struck Dean profoundly.

"He did?" he croaked. "Father Reardon asked you to break my deal and save me?"

"Not me specifically," Gabriel replied. "He sent out a celestial summons, and it was doozy. A real all-hands ABP—and from Frankie the Demon Slayer Reardon, that usually gets some attention among my brethren. It's like Commissioner Gordon flashing the bat signal. I heard him first start so I flipped his mute switch. I'm the only one who hears his prayers now—lucky for you."

"How does that make me lucky?" Dean asked. "And who the hell are you to decide who gets to hear prayers and who doesn't?"

Gabriel's smile turned to a smirk but little sparks of annoyance flared in his eyes.

"I usually play coy on a first date but seeing as we're such old friends, I'll come clean," the angel said. "I started this—the whole course of your life was altered by me for selfish reasons. I'd seen what would happen if I didn't. So to save the world—you and snoozing Stretch Armstrong over here included—I pulled you and your brother from harm's way when you were just little McNuggets in this big, old, crappy Happy Meal. Before you ask, I'm telling you now because I'm apologizing. I'm feeling a wee bit guilty. I should never have taken you specifically. He," he pointed at Sam, "had to go. My brother was going to like him far too much. I saved Sam's life from angst, pain, and tragedy. That much I know I got right because he never got roofied with some serious Hell smack. So, feel free to thank me at any time for that. As for you… I just didn't think when I grabbed you that I was ending your life. I'm sorry about that, by the way. I thought I was doing the right thing, but it just came back to bit me in the ass. Relate much?"

Dean nodded. He wasn't following the diatribe completely, but it was filling in a few spots in his mind that niggled at him in quiet moments of painful solitude. He always knew his life would be difficult and that it would be painful while amounting to very little. Hearing that his brother was spared a terrible fate, however, was comforting.

"Why tell me this now?" Dean asked. "Sam's going to be okay regardless of what happens to me, right?"

Gabriel huffed. His own brothers, who had a few millennia on this kid, never showed that level of interest or concern in each other. They were all-powerful beings with the ability to literally mold and unravel the universe; they could see futures and pasts and understand the intricate and complicated destinies of entire worlds, yet they somehow never managed to find the capacity for caring about each other deeply or for very long. These boys, alive less than two decades, made Gabriel envious and feel shameful.

"Sam will be fine," Gabriel said. "You won't be. I should have watched you more closely. I shouldn't have let my guard down. I just thought that all the trouble, the kind I averted when I took you and your brother out of your house, was no longer possible. As it turns out, I do know what will happen next, and it scares the grace right out of me. I know where you're going at the end of your deal and what's likely to happen to you. So, I'm here tonight to offer you an alternative."

Dean raised an eyebrow. He was wary of the word offer. Offers were deals and the last one he took put a definite expiration date on his existence. Everyone, including his current companion, said there was no way out of it.

"You just said you can't help me," Dean asserted.

"I can't help you undo your deal," Gabriel shook his head. "No one can. I, however, can offer you an alternative for how all this ends." Dean narrowed his eyes and scoffed. "You're skeptical? Good that you've got that trait working for you again. This is a crap sandwich no matter how we slice it. I can't get you your life back, but I can protect your soul. I've got some pull with reapers. Your crossroads deal is still very hush-hush throughout the winged and smoky realm. My brother's don't know about it—well, most of them. The jailbird knows—Lucifer's probably taking nice, long, slow showers in anticipation of what it means."

Dean shirked and grimaced at the prediction. Gabriel also shivered dramatically as he continued.

"Trust me," he said. "It's an even worse image if you know him. And I do. What I also know is that he trusts no one. That is absolute. I'll bet my own life that he's only mentioned bits of his plan to at most two of his loyalist minions, and even they won't know how you fit into them. Lucifer isn't into spoiler alerts. His mooks won't have told the whole story. That gives us an advantage and leaves us a few paths."

"Paths to what?"

The angel offered a brief explanation about Biblical predictions and a family feud of epic proportions. Dean merely nodded throughout. He found it nearly impossible to believe any of it, yet something deep within him readily accepted the information as though they were little secrets locked in his DNA just waiting to be identified and called out.

"I'm recommending we end this prize fight before a single punch is thrown," Gabriel said.

"How?"

"Take a play from my book," the angel answered. "When the going gets tough, the smart and cute ones get going. Look, when you're playing poker and you've got no money to cover your bet and your opponent is holding all the cards you need, there's only one option. You kick over the table."

Dean nodded, having been in circumstances similar to that. He'd never run to save his neck before, but he did believe in evasive action when it was possible.

"You want me to run away and hide from your family like you did?" Dean surmised. "Do I get celestial witness protection like you? 'Cause, I gotta say, the cut and run thing doesn't seem like my style, but Norwegian twin orgies could turn me around on the idea."

Gabriel chuckled and wagged his finger at the human. In no reality he ever viewed had he ever done the hedonistic thing with Dean Winchester as his sidekick. The more the angel considered it, the more he felt the loss of such a possibility. In fact, taking Dean as his vessel was also an option he never considered. Of course, there was a reason for that. The real Loki was giving Gabriel the full-on stealth protection that only he could and part of the deal was he needed to pose as Loki. There was also the possibility of the vessel exploding if the match wasn't perfect.

"Kid, I like how you dream but that kind of wonderful ain't an option on this table," Gabriel shook his head. "You need to be gone—as in sent to a place where you can't be found. I can't let Lucifer fight Michael. Preventing that epic shit sandwich from being served is why Dad left me alone to hide here all these years. He let me run away because he banked on me to stand between my brothers like an eternal DMZ when the critical moments came. So the way I see it, you've got two choices. You come with me now and I stash you someplace for the rest of eternity where no one can ever find you. That would put this story to bed. Door number two is less certain and requires some serious work on your part. Oh, and in that option, I own your ass until this thing is done. Basically, I say jump, you say how high, thank you sir, and may I have another. I won't lie to you, neither task is easy for me, but one is way easier on you."

Dean exhaled slowly and looked around his room for anything to jump out at him for inspiration, but all he found was an arrogant dick in a recliner giving him the same face his principal gave him when he told him that he was certain Notre Dame made a mistake when accepting him. Dean happened to agree he was the wrong fit but doing what would piss the guy off was a stronger sensation.

"If I die, don't the demons just get my soul by default?" Dean asked. "Reapers ferry souls to hell as well as heaven. They'll see on my ticket where I'm supposed to go, won't they? I mean, it's a crossroads contract. They can't be broken—you said so yourself."

"Well," Gabriel shrugged, "that's true… mostly, but the law is tricky everywhere, and I am the Trickster."

"You're a dick," Dean groused. "This is all a game to you."

The archangel was out of the recliner in half a blink. His eyes flared and a brilliant glow surrounded him and silhouetted two enormous black wings against the wall as a ringing noise filled Dean's ears.

"I'm an angel, dumbass," he snapped. "Heaven or Hell can't get your soul if I don't let them near it. Reapers are angels, but they follow orders of anyone with a bigger halo than they've got. That means they'll listen to whoever's got the biggest badge in the room. I'm the ranking sheriff down on this planet, capisce?"

He explained that he could spirit Dean away that night and install him in a place where no one could touch him. He refused to say where it was or what would become of Dean. His answer that the place was literally "nothing" was as infuriating as it was unhelpful. The Door Number Two option was also not appetizing. It was a quest of sorts, one that was a longer risk and did not promise the lucrative pay off of oblivion in the place of eternal torture and damnation at the end even if they succeeded. That choice would require Dean to find and kill a yellow-eyed demon named Azazel (and any black-eyed bitch who got in the way) while keeping himself alive all the while neutralizing anyone Azazel tapped to be his helper in springing Lucifer from his cage. And he had to do all of that before his six years were up.

"In theory, we can try and derail my brother's plans," Gabriel said. "It's a longshot and kind of a never ending battle because even if I tried to hide you when your deal comes due, they'll keep looking for you forever. Those hellhounds are a bitch. The more I protect you, the more I'm gonna be on the radar as well. Heaven's gonna notice eventually. Then you'll have the God Squad on your ass too because they may be bureaucrats, but they're not all idiots. My big bro Michael will figure it out and come a-calling for you. Now, I'm good, but even at my best, he could always beat my ass."

"Can he beat Lucifer?" Dean asked feeling small and insignificant despite the pivotal role he would play in whatever course he chose.

"I don't know," Gabriel shook his head. "It took everything he had to put Lucifer in the cage eons ago. That's what worries me. And even if he did win again, who's to say that what Michael would do to this world would be a good thing? You think I'm an ego maniac? I've got nothing on Michael. And, ask yourself this, if you had just killed your brother, would you be fit to make any big decisions for the welfare of a few billion lives?"

Dean cast his eyes at Sam again and felt a knot in his chest. Just seeing Sam hurt that evening sent Dean into a rage. If anyone ever killed him, he would be violently inconsolable; if his was the hand that struck down his brother, what remained of him would not be worth saving and surely would have no business influencing the lives of anyone else.

"So, Plan A?" Gabriel suggested with an encouraging nod. "It's quick, easy, painless, and foolproof. I snap of these fingers, and you never ended up in hell. Lucifer never walks free. Best New Year's resolution ever, and it's one I can help you keep, friend."

Dean chewed his lip and felt his heart thumping. Whether it was in his real body or just his mind adding that detail, he did not know. He swallowed hard.

"You're talking about stopping Armageddon," he breathed heavily, feeling the weight of the fanatical story pressing down on his shoulders. "You're saying that if I don't choose one of your paths, then the Apocalypse is going to start for certain? A whole lot of people will get killed, and it'll be my fault?"

"In a nutshell, yeah," Gabriel nodded.

"And if I take one of your choices, I've a 100 percent chance to avoid all that with one, and may just a 50 percent chance with other?" he ventured.

"More like five percent chance of success on second one and maybe 80 percent on the other," Gabriel predicted. "Vegas money tells you to take studio showcase number one with an all-expenses paid trip to your own private Idaho."

Dean looked again at his brother. Sam was nearly grown up. He was smart and capable. He had done well in many ways without his older brother watching out for him that year. He had two parents who loved him and looked out for him. He geeky but caring friends. He had plans and a future. On paper, he didn't need his brother around anymore.

Yet, that night, Sam had insisted the opposite was true. The sincerity in his eyes and the passion in his words for Dean spoke of a different reality entirely. He begged Dean in the burning house not to leave him.

"And there are no other options?" Dean persisted.

"Just the three: your current status quo or my two," Gabriel said, banging up a finger to count each option. "A: Wait six years for the destiny train so you can start the end of the world. B: Remove yourself from the game board altogether. Or, C: Undertake a plan basically destined to fail on the crazy-assed hope that you might for once in your miserable life get lucky and come out on top of a lopsided battle. The choice is pretty obvious from where I sit, Cochise."

Dean chewed his lip and rubbed his chin pensively.

"No option D?" he wondered. "Tests usually have four options."

Gabriel chuckled and shook his head.

"Dad would have liked you," he muttered. "Yes, I suppose there is a fourth option, also unlikely to success. Think of it as the Squeegee Option. I Windex your brain—again, mind you—and I send you far, far away again to a place you've never known. I put as much celestial and supernatural protection around you as I can and hope for the best. Think dreary monastery with dudes in robes and a lot of self-flagellation."

"Farting monks?" Dean blinked.

"No, whipping yourself daily to keep the mind clear and the back oozing with blood," Gabriel scoffed. "No women. No booze. No games. No talking. No outside contact at all, Dean. You'd be alone—entirely. No other human beings. You get to live, but you don't know who you are or how long you'll be that way. When you do die, I'll come for you and stash you where I plan to put you in Plan A anyway. The only difference between Plan A—for awesome—and Plan D—for dumbass—is that in D you live 80 blameless years of tortuous solitude rather than going out on a high note as a 19-year-old who's been banging both of the hotties who live across the street from him and ends his existence without even a hint of pain right here, right now. Oh, and congrats by the way on the lovely ladies. Rhonda Hurley is miraculously bendy, and that Gretchen is a wild ride, too. I may want to visit and console them when you're gone."

Dean shirked at the pronouncement and thrust thoughts of being spied upon by an angel out of his mind along with memories of his last sheet romps with either of the senior class women who lived across from Dean's apartment in South Bend.

"But in the end, you don't know that any of this will work," Dean challenged. "You said you don't know what happens next anymore. So it's possible none of your ideas could work, right?"

Gabriel sighed and flopped his arms then eventually shrugged and nodded.

"What I know is that whether I take you now to the Nothing or if I erase your casaba and send you to Himalayan solitude, both choices protect your family," Gabriel argued. "I'm talking solid protection from any wrath you might draw by being a magnet from hellhounds, demons, and my dickhead brothers once the proverbial shit begins hitting the fan."

"But I'd have to leave my family without saying goodbye," Dean said with a troubled look at his brother. "No matter where or how you take me, they'd remember me and realize I was gone?"

"I can't go wiping minds as frequently as I break hearts, Dino," Gabriel shook his head. "If I did, I'd have to scrub half of Sioux Falls and an impressive number of very willing young ladies in Indiana—again, seriously, bravo with that. You did me proud."

He winked at Dean, which made him shudder and feel like he needed a shower. As he shook off the feeling, he looked at his snoozing brother. Dean felt a clench in his chest. They had just buried the hatchet—and not in each other. Leaving would cause Sam some grief, but in the end there was no way the kid's life didn't get better in the grand scheme if Dean was flat out removed from it.

"If I chose D, they'll think I just left them," Dean said. "I promised Sam tonight that I wouldn't disappear on him again. I swore to him that I'd finish school. The kid never asks me for anything, but tonight he did. I don't want to let him down."

Gabriel sighed and snapped his fingers. His recliner disappeared, and he loomed over Dean with a hard face and cold eyes.

"I don't have a magic wand and not all stories get a happy ending, kid," the angel said. "Dying tonight and letting me spirit your ass away to Neverland is your best bet. I'll make it an aneurism so you'll be a handsome corpse. As far as your family knows, you went to sleep and whamo, you died without feeling a thing. No struggle. No pain. Easy for a coroner to find so no lingering questions for your family. Just a fluke of nature that no one could predict or prevent. Only the good die young, Dean. Going this route will cement your sainthood in Sam's eyes. Your family might even set up a scholarship in your honor at the high school: whoever gets the most detentions and suspensions but still bangs a cheerleader and graduates wins the prize. Sounds exciting when you think about it."

Dean nodded as he considered the option. Simply slipping away quietly and without fuss to a place where he would, for the first time ever, he would be completely safe and at apparently peace. His family would know he was gone and have a believable reason for why. They would mourn him, but they would have answers they could accept (whether they liked them was another story). He wouldn't be responsible for anyone and nothing bad coming down the pike would be his fault. He wouldn't have any expectations to life up to, and there would be no one around he could disappoint. He'd only leave them with memories.

Of course, that posed a problem. There weren't many of those that were all that good. He'd been difficult and a pain in the ass. Sainthood was hardly an option despite the angel's assurance. He looked to Sam snoozing on the floor. The kid was so earnest early when proclaiming his big brother could do anything; it was his sincere look as much as his heartfelt words that nearly leveled Dean while making him feel intoxicatingly proud and eternally indebted to his little brother—and that made the choice for Dean easy.

"Okay," he exhaled slowly after a protracted pause. "I've made up my mind."

Gabriel stood and held out his arms, encouraging Dean reveal his choice. Dean took a deep breath and settled his mind on the greatest decision he'd ever make—even greater than the choice to sell his soul—as he looked around his room. He exhaled with conviction and knew he'd made the right one there in the dark.

_**-oOoOoOo-**_

_**A/N:**_ The plan is to continue this series if there is sufficient interest. However, I'm an actual novelist who needs to get paid so that means I have professional publishing obligations with deadlines that I need to meet first. When those are done, I'll be back again. In the meantime, please check out my original works via the links on my profile page. All characters (even those not created by Eric Kripke) deserve a chance. All writers need a little love, too. Some of us even like to eat and pay bills.


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